


i'll walk through hell with you

by amyscascadingtabs



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Children, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Fertility Issues, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, IVF, Implied Sexual Content, Married Life, Trying For A Baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2020-10-17 23:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20628995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyscascadingtabs/pseuds/amyscascadingtabs
Summary: "When does it become something?"Jake furrows his brows. "What do you mean?”"Because everyone always says the same thing. One month is nothing. Three months is nothing.”  Amy twirls the negative test between her fingers. “Four months was nothing, either. So when does it becomesomething?"Everyone knows how to get pregnant - it's simple, general knowledge. You go off your birth control, track your ovulation, time it properly and there you are.They don't tell you what to do when it's not that simple.





	1. you’re all i never knew i needed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy has a proposal for Jake, an agreement is made, and a new project begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. hiiii.  
i get crazy ideas sometimes, and this is one of them. a multi-chapter fic, when i've just started uni? what could ever go wrong?
> 
> but yeah - i guess it's what i'm doing. welcome to a certified rollercoaster of baby-making! maybe that should've been the title of this fic?
> 
> the actual title, however, as well as all the chapter titles - is from rachel platten’s ‘stand by you’ (great peraltiago song!).
> 
> i hope you enjoy!
> 
> disclaimer: this is a work of fiction, and my view and portrayal of the cops in b99 is not an accurate representation of how i feel about the actual nypd and police. it is not meant and has never been meant to be viewed as such, and it is my deepest wish that you do not use these characters and these portrayals as a way to affect your feelings about police in real life. thank you.

**october**

“More book.” Leah’s barely keeping her eyes open, her eyelids falling before she blinks herself awake yet another time. “Read more book?”

“We’ve read three books already,” Amy reminds the almost-two-year-old bookworm snuggling into her side. “I think it’s time to sleep.”

“_More _ book,” Leah insists another time. A yawn follows immediately after her request, and it’s hard for Amy to keep from laughing. 

“Tomorrow, baby,” she promises instead, tucking her daughter’s wild hair between her ears and kissing her forehead. “We’ll read more books tomorrow.”

“Mor-row.”

“Yeah, tomorrow.”

“More books mor-row,” comes with another yawn. “Night?”

“Yeah, it's time to say goodnight. I love you,” she whispers, hugging the child tight. “Dream sweet dreams and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She almost expects a reply, but there isn’t one, because Leah’s already drifting to sleep. Once she’s given in to the exhaustion, she’s passed out in a matter of seconds. Their daughter's unswerving competitive streak shines through even at bedtime; the same series of events have been occurring for several months now. Leah will insist she's not tired even as she starts yawning repeatedly, demand they read book after book and fall asleep in under a minute once she finally gives in to her inevitable need to rest sometimes. 

Amy carefully moves the child’s arms off her own chest to free herself from the warm embrace, steps out of the toddler bed and tucks her daughter in an extra time. 

She stays for a while after Leah’s fallen asleep. She always stays a few minutes at her daughter’s bedside, trying to prolong the utter beauty and calm of the moment as long as possible. Leah’s getting so big now, enough so to fit into a toddler bed and sleep in her own room, and even though it’s come on gradually, the toddler’s raised level of independence brings on a lot of emotions for Amy. It feels like yesterday this kid was a helpless infant stuck to her like a band-aid near twenty-four seven and now she's a _ child_, a child with personality and interests who waves through the window when she's dropped off at daycare in the morning and falls asleep in her own room like she never did anything else. It makes Amy entirely convinced time is moving too fast.

The all too quick progress of time is one of the reasons she cherishes these peaceful moments so much. When Leah's asleep, all innocent and relaxed and clutching onto the blanket with one fist, it seems like the passing of time stops for a moment; like there's nothing else but the perfect sight of her sleeping. She looks both so big and so small like this, Amy thinks. It's painfully clear she's no longer the tiny baby she used to be, but she never looks younger, more angelic, than she does when she's asleep. It makes Amy’s heart swell with love as the toddler reaches out for the stuffed lion animal she refuses to go to bed without, smiling in her sleep.

“You're the best thing in my life,” she whispers to her daughter before she leaves the room. “I love you so much.”

She tells her the same thing every night, meaning it as much every time.

However, despite how much she means those words, Amy’s willing to admit Leah isn’t exactly the master of tidiness yet. The living room and kitchen looks like a medium-sized volcano erupted there when really, all that went down was Amy trying to feed a stubborn toddler dinner and attempting to do some work from home while _ Doc McStuffins _on the iPad kept said toddler entertained. Now she has to spend a good ten minutes putting dishes in the dishwasher and toys in the toy bin while she waits for her husband to come home. 

Neither of them work as many late shifts anymore, but they still usually have to suffer through it at least once a week. Amy loathed these nights on her own before having a baby and found herself getting bored of it way too soon, but she values them now; they’re the longest stretch of proper alone time she gets in her current everyday life. Sometimes she uses this time to do extra work on her computer, but she's all caught up tonight, so she settles for pouring herself a glass of wine and curling up on the sofa with a crossword puzzle she’ll actually have time to solve. 

It’s just her luck, then, that when she truly has the time to delve deep and challenge her brain, she stumbles upon the easiest clue she’s seen in a long time. 

Seven letters across, _ someone with the same mother and father as you_, ending in a g. She snorts at the basic level of the puzzle and fills in SIBLING without missing a beat before moving on to the next clue.

It's just a word, an answer for a too-simple hint in a crossword whose level is frankly beneath her, but once she writes it down she can't stop thinking.

It’s a meaningless reminder with zero connection to her personal life. It doesn’t _ mean _ anything, she reminds herself, but it reawakens an already budding thought nonetheless. 

Leah’s the perfect age to have a sibling. She must be, because whenever Amy is dropping the girl off at daycare, she swears every other mom there is either pregnant or bringing a newborn with them. Two years is the age gap between the majority of her own siblings. Two years is what she and Jake talked about in their early discussions, agreeing on a goal of two kids which got dropped and was never brought up again after their first child successfully upended their lives in the best way. She supposes they never talked about settling for one child, either - they’d simply felt complete for the moment.

Half a glass of wine makes her significantly tipsier now than before she had a baby, so maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the fact that she recently turned thirty-nine, and she may be a Santiago, but even her mom had her last baby at forty. Maybe it’s the fact that she recently sorted through their storage space and found the boxes of Leah’s old baby clothes they saved, holding up the miniature onesies and tearing up in disbelief she ever had a baby tiny enough to fit in those items. Maybe it’s solely a random thought, brought on by a comically simple clue in a crossword puzzle. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make her put down the pen and crossword on the couch table and go get the photo albums she created for her pregnancy and Leah’s first year.

She’s halfway through the first album and all the way through her glass of wine by the time she hears the door unlock.

“Hey, wife.” Even after four years of marriage, Jake’s smile is wide and dorky when he says it, like he still can’t believe they’re married and he gets to come home to her at the end of the day. “Is Lee asleep?”

“Yeah, she fell asleep an hour ago,” she replies, feeling her heart melt seeing how despondent he looks at the news, pouting his lips while he hangs up his jacket and messenger bag. “But go in and tell her goodnight anyway? I know she missed you.”

“I missed her. And you, too.” He makes a detour for the couch, giving her a chaste kiss on the lips before heading for their daughter’s bedroom. “I’ll be right back.”

She flips through the last pages of the first album while she waits for him. It feels like ages ago the pictures in it were taken and surreal to think she’d ever been that pregnant, although she remembers it vividly at the same time. The longing, the curiosity, and the never-ending wait for it all to be over so she could finally meet the person hiding inside her; it feels like yesterday, and yet it's perplexing to think there ever was a time before she knew her daughter. 

She misses it. Not living without Leah, not for a second, not even when they’re both exhausted and the toddler is crying and Amy never wants to hear the theme song to _ Doc McStuffins _ever again in her life, but the excitement of waiting for an entirely new little person to arrive and change their lives forever - she misses that feeling enough to long for a chance at experiencing it again. She wants another unbelievably tiny person to hold and snuggle and watch grow, another beautiful combination of herself and the man she loves most who she gets to see turning into their own unique individual, and she’s thought about it for quite some time but is certain now; she wants another child. 

“What are you looking at?” Jake sinks down in the armchair next to her, leaning his head over her shoulder. “Aww, those pictures. Wow. A long time ago.”

“Yeah.” She smiles, turning the page to the first spread of Leah's precious newborn pictures. Even after two years, it's hard for her to look at them without tearing up at the sight of her firstborn so tiny and new and perfect from the very first moment, and she has to use the sleeve of her hoodie to dry her eyes. “Two years, huh?”

“It’s insane.”

“It is,” Amy admits, tearing her gaze away from a photograph of an hours-old Leah asleep on her chest to look up at Jake. “I wanted to talk to you about a thing.”

“A thing,” he repeats teasingly, an amused grin on his lips. “Sounds specific.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ve just been thinking about something.”

“I’m listening.” He stands up, sitting down at the other edge of the couch instead when she moves her legs aside, and she takes a deep breath to gather her confidence.

Finding the right words seem impossible at first. They feel momentous, and she's unsure whether it’s something he’s thought about or not. Amy silently chides herself for_ not asking _ \- she needs to start learning from her mistakes. Jake’s watching her with an air of expectancy, leaning one arm on the back of the couch and resting his head on his bicep.

“So I know we’re a great little family as we are, right now,” she treads carefully.

“The best.”

“Yeah, the best.” She reaches out her free hand, taking his in hers as they share a smile. “But I’ve been thinking about it for a little while, in the back of my head, and I… I think it could be a good time.”

He crinkles his forehead. “Good time for what?”

Amy rambles the following words way too quickly. “What would you say about maybe adding another member to it?”

There’s a beat of silence as what she’s said begins to sink in for him. Her heart is racing, not in an unbearable way but one that makes her short of breath nonetheless, and she’s watching every minute movement of her husband’s face as he runs a hand through his hair, a spark of excitement flashing in his eyes.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I hope so.”

His grin grows wider, and there’s a split second where she thinks he’s going to tear up before he speaks. “Oh my _ god_, you changed your mind about getting a cat?!”

She’s literally taken aback, pulling her hand out of his and leaning backward on the couch. Scrunching her nose and shaking her head, she tries and fails to make sense of the obvious miscommunication.

“Babe, what are you even talking about?”

“What are _ you _talking about?” He looks about as confused as she feels, twisting his face like he’s somewhere between deep frustration and outright laughter. 

“When did we ever talk about getting a cat?”

“Last week, after I went over to Craig’s house with Leah?”

“Craig with the hat or Craig with the creepy identical twins?”

“Craig the single dad with the twins, and they’re not _creepy, _they’re just very identical and I’m not saying I hope Leah stays friends with them until they’re older and I can influence them to dress up like the twins from The Shining for Halloween, but I wouldn’t _mind_ it, you know. Anyway, they have the most amazing cat,” he says, making heart-eyes at the mention. “She’s called Luna and she’s so fluffy and her breed is allergy-friendly and Leah totally adored her, so I asked you when we were going to sleep if you thought we should get a cat sometime, and you said not until Leah’s older. So - did you change your mind?”

“Jake, was that the same day I went to Shaw’s with Rosa?”

“Might have been - ohh,” he realizes, nodding slowly. “Your alcohol tolerance sucks. You don’t remember.”

“I really don’t, no. Either way,” she shrugs, “that’s not what I was saying.”

“So what were you saying?”

“I thought I was making it obvious with the album and all, but I guess not.” She reaches for his hand again. “What I was _ trying _ to say, is that I want to start trying for another baby. If you want to.”

If he looked confused before, he’s completely bewildered now, mouth gaping and brows raised.

“Wait, Ames. You want a _ baby_?”

“Yeah! Why's that such a shock?”

“I don't know,” he laughs, “because you explicitly told me we were never having another baby? Multiple times?”

“I did? When?”

“Every single day for the first and last two months of your pregnancy? While you were in labor? After?”

“Well, obviously I didn't want another baby _ then_,” she explains, rolling her eyes again. “But I want one now.”

“Cool. It's just, you also gave me highly specific instructions about how if you ever insisted on having another kid, I would remind you of exactly how awful pregnancy and childbirth was until you changed your mind.”

“Really?”

“I know because I wrote it down,” says Jake, reaching for the phone in his pocket. “It's somewhere in my notes, what you asked me to write…”

“That's okay, you don't have to read it to me -”

“Here it is! _ If Amy ever says she wants another baby, remind her of how awful labor was and how it felt like she was going to pass out from the pain before the epidural and also how much it burned to push a _ \- uh,” he blushes, “ you know roughly what it says. “ _ If that doesn't work and she still insists she would do it again, remind her of how much it sucked to feel perpetually nauseous for the first three months of pregnancy, or be the size of an above-average walrus and constantly in pain for the last two. _ ” Jake puts down the phone in his lap, doing a sharp inhale for dramatic effect. _ “If she still says she could do it, please do everything in your power to convince her otherwise. _ There’s more, but - I think you get the gist.”

“...I asked you to write this down?”

“Yes. Yes, you very much did.”

She’s trying not to laugh, but the thought of her being so obdurate about not wanting another baby she penned an entire defense speech against herself and made Jake keep it is wildly entertaining, and before she knows it, she’s giggling uncontrollably at the entire concept. It only takes seconds before Jake’s laughing too, and she moves closer to him, squeezing him tight in a hug. 

“You’re adorable for saving that, you know?”

“Well, you were very intense about it.” He leans back just enough to press a quick, delicate, kiss to her lips. “But to be fair, you _ did _ hate a lot of things about pregnancy and childbirth.”

“Huge fan of the result, though.”

“Mm,” he nods, giving her a dreamy smile that partly makes her want to cry happy tears and partly makes her want to jump him then and there. She supposes her busted alcohol tolerance isn’t helping much. “That I have to agree with.”

“And, I mean, I did do it. Even if it sucked, I’ve survived it once, you know?”

“You aced it.”

“So I’m pretty sure I _ could _ do it again. And I know I apparently told you two years ago to convince me otherwise,” she says, meeting his gaze with purpose. “But I do want it.” 

“Okay.”

“So how do you feel about it?”

“How do… _ I _ feel?” Lines are forming between his eyebrows, his head tilting while he looks like he’s diverting all his brain-power to this one question.

“Yeah. Do you want another baby?”

“Oh. Wow.” Jake runs both of his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. I guess I just always assumed you definitely didn’t want another one and left it at that? Didn’t exactly feel like my thing to decide.”

“I love how considerate you are,” she tells him softly. “But you must have thought about it, right?”

“Well… yeah. I guess for me, I started thinking about another one from the point Leah started sleeping through the night. Maybe a month after. Whenever I started to feel human again,” he chuckles, and the corners of her mouth quirk up. “I didn’t say anything because I figured it’s not what you wanted. But if you changed your mind, then...”

“So you’re in?”

“I’m in,” he says without a trace of doubt in his voice, and she kisses him hard.

They’re so close, Amy’s practically straddling him, and perhaps she didn’t mean trying for a baby as in _ right-this-second here-and-now _ , but he’s smiling against her lips and their daughter’s deep asleep by now and there’s alcohol in her blood and he’s just made her so indisputably _ happy _, she’s everything but bothered by his lips trailing down her jawline, her neck, her shoulders.

“Just to check,” he mumbles, his breath warm against the skin over her now exposed collarbones as she’s running her hands along the back muscles he always claims he doesn’t have. “This isn’t some kind of elaborate scheme to get in my pants more often, then?”

“_Please _, like I’d ever need a scheme.”

  


**~**

**november**

They start properly planning the next day.

Amy’s heart is beating hard with excitement as she throws away the package of mini-pills in the morning, and she’s almost jittery when she stops at CVS after her work shift to buy ovulation test strips and fertility supplements. She never got to do this the first time around, when she simply went off her birth control intending to letting her body adjust and found herself pregnant after a couple of months of next to no active trying. She’d be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying the structure part of it now. Tracking, planning, color-coding. Hoping.

What speaks against her getting pregnant all too easily is her age, every website reminds her. Words like _ geriatric pregnancy _ and _ low ovarian reserves _ and even _ increased risk of stillbirth _ are thrown at her from every angle, causing her to bite her nails with stress while she's researching on her laptop at night. Jake catches her one evening, deeply submerged in a thread about success rates of IVF while she's twirling her hair to the beginning of a stress braid, and after prying the computer away from her hands, he dutifully reminds her that _ she's a Santiago. _Getting pregnant is no match for her. It worked out in no time for them before, and sure, they’re a few years older now, but they’ll be just fine, he repeats to her while massaging her tense shoulders until she relaxes in his arms. Surely he’s right, she figures. Santiago genes are strong, she’s been pregnant before, her body knows what to do. She’ll be fine. They’ll be fine.

It still doesn’t make the disappointment she feels when she gets her period any less palpable. It’s ironic, because she managed to convince herself she _ wasn’t _ hoping for it so well she started believing it, but it feels like a failure and an insult all at once when she digs out the yellow tampon box from the bathroom cupboard. Her eyes are drawn to the packet of spare pregnancy tests she keeps there, and there's a sharp pang in her chest at the realization that they won't be necessary right now. She bites her lip and pushes them further back in the storage space. _ Maybe next month _, she tells herself, splashing cold water on her face and taking three deep breaths before exiting the bathroom.

She’s feeling gloomy and disgusting - most likely an unlucky combination of the disappointment and PMS - and the only thing she wants to do is go lie down in bed for the remainder of the evening with a heating pad and Jake massaging her. Before kids, it’s what she could and would have done. Now she has an overly energetic toddler to consider, and said toddler turns two tomorrow, so Amy already knows putting her to bed tonight will be a lengthy and arduous process. Technically, Jake is in charge of it, but judging from the laughter and upbeat Taylor Swift songs coming from the kitchen, it's not going too well. 

What she sees upon exiting the bathroom only confirms her suspicions. _ Paper Rings _is playing from their Bluetooth speaker, and although Leah's out of her bath and dressed in her best Harry Potter pajamas, she seems as far from sleep as ever. Jake has her on his hip, spinning and dancing around and eliciting the best noises in the world for every questionable note he sets - the sound of their daughter's laughter. 

Amy knows she should be upset, because according to their tried-and-true nighttime routine Leah should have been in bed twenty minutes ago, but it's such a pure sight that she can't bring herself to protest. Jake's so into it, exaggerating every facial expression and movement to the song for his daughter's enjoyment, and Leah's positively beaming as she looks up at him. It's such a testament to their whole relationship, Amy thinks. Jake would walk to the ends of the earth for his daughter's happiness, and Leah would do her best to run after on her little legs, all the while shouting at him to wait for her. She adores him and he would do anything for her, and it's a dream come true for Amy to get to see their relationship grow each day. 

“Ames! Wanna join?” Jake’s out of breath after the singing and dancing, but still grinning as he extends her the offer.

“I'm good,” she laughs, feeling very much not in the mood to bust out her non-existing dancing abilities. “Care to explain why there's a dance party going on in here instead of nighttime stories?”

“Taylor Swift is one of our time’s greatest songwriters, and therefore her music could virtually be seen as stories?” He tries, and she shakes her head. “Fine. A certain someone didn't want to go to bed yet, so we're getting rid of all that excess energy.”

“I wonder why that could be, it's not like it's anyone's birthday tomorrow or anything.”

Leah's face lights up at the sound of her new favorite word. “_My _ birthday!”

“Yeah, your birthday,” Jake confirms with a kiss to his daughter's head. “Do you remember how big you're going to be?”

“Two!” She exclaims, glowing with pride. “Two years!”

“That's right,” says Amy, walking up to Jake and Leah so she can join them in a hug. Though she still has her doubts about the efficiency rate of dance parties as part of a nighttime routine, it seems to have worked for tonight - Leah’s eyes are shiny with exhaustion, her cheeks are getting rosy, and she almost sinks into Amy’s arms when they hug. “You’re going to be two. You just have to go rest for a little bit first, and when you wake up it’ll be your birthday. How does that sound?”

Leah yawns. “Not ti-red.”

Jake laughs, and Amy can’t help but smile either as the toddler watches him with confusion.

“Okay then, Lee the tiny bumblebee,” he offers, booping her nose. “How about we say goodnight to mama anyway, and then we go be awake but in your bed for a while?” Leah nods, and Amy’s given another sweet hug that makes every single worry disappear momentarily before they leave.

Her anxiety returns as quickly as it vanished. Once her husband and daughter are out of sight, she’s reminded their incredible little family will categorically _ not _ be growing by one in nine months, and maybe she wasn’t expecting it to happen in an instant, but subconsciously, it seems like she was. She’s never been good at accepting her failures, and perhaps _ not getting pregnant in the first month of actively trying _isn’t a failure by definition, but it feels like one to Amy.

There’s no time to wallow in it, though. The following day might be a Monday and both her and Jake are working, but they are celebrating their daughter’s second birthday with a pancake breakfast even if they have to spend the night preparing for it. Amy figures she could always get started on the pancake batter while she waits for her husband.

She’s mixing the dry ingredients into the wet ones when Jake sneaks up on her. His arms snake around her waist, his chin leaning on her shoulder, and she giggles instinctively when he starts pressing feather-light kisses to the side of her neck, tickling her.

“Is Lee sleeping?” She asks, and he nods.

“Out like a light after half a story. Then I had to make my way out without waking her up somehow, which was pretty tough considering she was holding onto my arm with a death grip. Took me like ten minutes, but I did it. Also, are you making pancake batter?”

“I am.” He dips the edge of his finger in it before she can protest, but then he screws up his face and shakes his head.

“Oh, Ames, there’s like, _ twice _ as much salt in this as it should be. Didn’t you follow the recipe?”

“I know how to make pancakes, I don’t need a recipe.”

“Yes, you do. Honey, I love you a lot, but you are _ not _ a natural at cooking. I’ll make another batch,” he says, taking the bowl away from her and beginning to rinse it out in the kitchen sink. 

“Fine,” she mumbles, feeling a sense of defeat wash over her, and he must sense her unenthusiasm because he gives her a curious look, his eyes narrowing with concern.

“Is something wrong, babe?”

“No. Yes. No... I don’t know.” She sits up on the counter while Jake gets out the ingredients she just put away and pulls up a recipe on his phone. “I, uh, got my period.”

“Oh,” he says, in such a caring and affectionate tone it melts her heart again. “Do you need anything? Painkillers? Hugs? A massage?”

“No, I feel pretty okay - thank you, though. It’s just - that means I’m not pregnant.”

“Well, duh - _ ooohhh _,” he realizes. “I see.”

Amy frowns. “Did you forget we were trying for a baby?”

“Not in any way, shape or form. But I thought it was obvious it could take a few months? You were repeating it to me over and over while you made that color-coded schedule.”

“I was,” she admits. “And I know. I was just... hoping. A little. I’m impatient, okay?”

Jake stops mixing the dry ingredients, pointing the spoon at her and consequently almost shooting a cloud of flour and vanilla powder her way. “Maybe _ you _ should do patience-training like Leah.”

“I’d like to state in front of the jury that _ I _rarely lay down on the floor and cry when I don't get to have dessert for dinner.”

“Touché,” he says with a grin. “Anyway, I'm sorry.”

“...Are you apologizing for not getting me pregnant?”

“What - _ no_!” Jake grimaces. “Wait, should I? I meant I’m sorry you’re sad. I get it. But a month is nothing, Ames. We’ll try again, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She’s waving her legs from the counter absentmindedly, feeling the most intense waves of frustration beginning to lift as he takes a break mixing the wet ingredients to wrap his arms around her waist again, reaching for a kiss. 

“Of course I am. Now, do you want to help me make these pancakes for our soon-to-be two-year-old?”

The disappointment lingers like a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach, but as she puts batter in the pan and Jake fries pancakes while they chat about how crazy it is that their daughter is somehow turning two years old and they'll have to remind Charles he can't buy everything Leah’s ever pointed to in a store for her birthday, it's easier to manage. 

She'll be fine, she repeats to herself. They'll be fine. Maybe next month, she'll be pregnant. 

“Two years ago this time we were watching _ Mamma Mia! _,” Jake reminisces as he flips another pancake. They're slightly uneven in size, but at least they're not burnt, so Amy supposes they're already better than what she could have accomplished. “And you were having contractions while trying to convince me you weren't having contractions.”

“I didn’t think I was!”

“Sure you didn’t,” he teases, and she rolls her eyes. “Craziest day of my life, that's for sure.”

“So worth it, though,” Amy whispers, and Jake smiles, squeezing her shoulder with his free hand. “We did well.”

“And we will another time.” He must read her mind somehow, she thinks, bringing up what she was already thinking. “It’ll work out soon, Ames. You’re a Santiago.”

“Yeah.” She takes a deep breath, partly to calm the stubborn wave of disappointment and partly because she’s starting to feel the familiar dull pain in her stomach by now. Jake puts the last pancake on the plate of them before turning the heat off, and then, as if he’s sensing her anxiety and discomfort, wraps her in a warm hug. The remaining heat from the stove almost makes it feel a little clammy, but he nuzzles his nose against her forehead and it’s soothing, a cherished moment of utter intimacy and safety. 

“It’ll be fine, babe. Do you think we should get at least a couple hours of sleep before our birthday kid wakes up so early it should be classified as inhumane?”

“We should,” she agrees, trying not to groan when she shifts slightly and her cramps intensify. “I’ll clean up in here, and then I’ll take you up on that massage offer.”

Jake presses a kiss to the top of her head. “One heating pad and one back massage coming right up.”

Amy falls asleep in his arms that night, and it doesn’t erase the gnawing feeling making a home in her stomach, but it mitigates it.

Surely Jake is right about this, she figures. She’ll get pregnant in another month or two.

It won’t be a problem.

  


**~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … yeah.  
thank you SO MUCH for reading! next chapter will be up.. when it's up. my life is intense please be patient with me and subscribe to not miss it! also if you're too impatient, pop into my dms at amyscascadingtabs on tumblr and i'll happily update you with how this fic is doing because it’s my little baby!
> 
> i did so much weird research for this fic. for example, i listened to the doc mcstuffins intro several times and i can confirm that it’s PAINFUL. come and let the visit begin!!! help me. i also thought way, way too much about what kind of contraception they could use that is slightly more permanent than condoms but takes shorter time to adjust after than regular birth control. turns out you’re typically fertile seven days after stopping mini-pills and they’re also safe to take while nursing! anyway, there’s weirder research to come for me in this fic, so..
> 
> a warm, warm thank you to;
> 
> -siân, my beloved biased craig-stan, for being so supportive of this idea from the first time i facetimed her babbling about it. thank you for laughing at some of my jokes and allowing me to talk about this fic forever and ever and providing me with random names for side characters. #craigwiththehatstan4ever #whereishiswife
> 
> -emma, simply for being precisely the person who could tell me what contraception they were supposed to be using when i was stressing out.. thank you for saving me on this
> 
> -tilde, for doing an absolutely fabulous job beta-reading! seriously, thank you so much.
> 
> -you, for reading! ❤️ please leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed this! what was your favorite part/joke/description? what are your expectations? or just tell me what your favorite leah thing was
> 
> (if you read and enjoyed the fic about julian santiago - there might be a surprise coming in chapter two. if you haven’t read it yet, now’s the time!)


	2. i guess truth is what you believe in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy and Leah visit family, a holiday is celebrated, and illness takes over the Santiago-Peralta household.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO UPDATE.  
in my defence; a bit of a crisis happened in my life a couple weeks ago and it was just all a big fucking mess which didn't go well together with being in much of a headspace for writing. also, i’m in uni and currently have to produce one assignment per week which is just really fun. actually it is because it’s gender studies. but still. it takes time. 
> 
> last reminder that this chapter contains a bunch of original santiago characters and if you want more of an introduction to them, check out the fic about julian santiago i posted this summer!
> 
> this is also a bit of a buildup/set-up chapter, but don't worry, you'll hate/love me soon enough!

**december**

If there is one thing Amy is certain of, stuck in the car with 97 miles to go and an overtired toddler in the back seat, it is that something must be seriously wrong with her. 

No one in their right mind says yes to a family weekend upstate with all siblings and their families nine days before Christmas. Not when it’s a three-hour drive. Not while they’re already left alone to care for their child for the weekend due to a time-sensitive and crucial opportunity coming up in a case Jake has worked for two months. Not when previously mentioned child is recovering from a cold and is ten times more cranky and attention-craving than normal. 

Except - apparently - Amy.

She doesn't know what the _ fuck _she was thinking. 

She knows some thought went into her plan, such as the idea to drive late at night so Leah could sleep in the car. She simply wishes it could have _ worked _ , because right now the toddler is singing _ Wheels On The Bus _ for the seventeenth time in forty minutes and Amy feels like her head is going to explode. It's a quarter to ten, over two hours past the kid’s bedtime, and so far she refuses to fall asleep. She's wide awake in her seat, chatting and laughing and singing like there’s no tomorrow. If Amy had as much as a spare drop of energy left -even better, if there had been another parent in the car to focus on entertaining their child - the whole thing would have been adorable, but tonight it’s exhausting above anything else. 

“Maaa-maaa?” Leah shouts the word from the back seat, wildly kicking her legs against the back cushioning, and Amy has to take a deep breath before she can reply in a calm tone. 

“Yes, baby?” 

“Are we there?”

“Not yet, Lee.”

Amy can see the reflection of Leah scrunching her forehead in the baby car mirror. “Why?”

“Because we still have a little way left to drive. We’ll be there soon, I promise.”

“Soon?” Leah shines up, kicking her legs again. “When is soon?”

“It will go faster if you close your eyes for a while,” She tries, using one of the oldest parenting tricks in the book. “I promise.”

“Not tired!” Her daughter responds in her cheeriest voice, and Amy gives herself a mental pat on the back for stifling a groan.

They repeat this exchange about ten times or so before Leah tires of it and returns to her singing. At that point, Amy’s counting it as a win. As much as she loves being this kid’s mom, there are indubitably times - and late-night drives with an overtired two-year-old in the back seat - when she loves it less. 

Then Leah falls asleep for the last ten miles of the drive and clutches her arms and legs around Amy like a koala to a tree when she’s lifted out of her car seat and carried to bed, and motherhood is easier to love than ever. 

-

There’s never an uneventful day with all of the Santiagos in the same house, and it’s not anymore relaxing with the extra presence of six partners, twelve grandchildren, and one dog. From the moment Amy and Leah make their way down to the kitchen for breakfast, and the toddler finds out there might be a cookie baking session with grandma happening today, the day is in full swing. Leah joins her in facetiming Jake for a few minutes to say good morning, but after that, Amy barely sees her daughter for more than a split second in several hours.

The chaos is a welcome distraction. She plays _ Cards Against Humanity _ with Luis’s teenage daughters and Julian until Simon starts begging them to help him make a YouTube video, and she teaches five-year-old Noah how to draw the perfect portrait of a horse. She reads a story to three-year-old Maisie, and she laughs heartily at the sight of Leah chasing Oscar the Bichon Frise around while yelling _ Kitty Cat!._ For a few, wondrous hours, Amy manages to live in blissful oblivion over the two starkly negative pregnancy tests she unceremoniously shoved in the bathroom trash can before leaving yesterday, and it feels like heaven.

It feels like heaven up until she joins the crew of brothers and partners currently taking up space in the kitchen. Her brother Isaac is parked in the middle of the kitchen couch, feeding the youngest Santiago member,just-turned one-month-old Milo, with a bottle; around him Camila, Luis, Tony and his wife Clara all fawn over and admire every aspect of the newborn’s appearance. Christian, Julian and Julian’s husband Lucas are at the other end of the kitchen cuddling with and doting on the exhausted dog, and Amy silently curses her allergies for making her unable to join them. Simon just brought out his camera in the living room and she refuses to risk another unwilling YouTube appearance, so her only option is to sit down with the team of awestruck baby-admirers. 

“You forget how tiny they are,” Luis says, watching the infant with a nostalgic glance in his eyes. “I’ve had five, and you never get used to it.”

“You don’t,” Camila confirms with a small laugh, reaching out to stroke the baby’s closed fist with her thumb and index finger. “Not even I do. I’m shocked every time!” 

“I thought I remembered everything from when Maisie was born.” Isaac grins, giving the empty baby bottle to Camila and carefully lifting the infant upright against his shoulder. “But then he comes out, and I think he must be several pounds lighter because surely Maisie was never _ this _ tiny, but he was bigger!” He shakes his head. “It’s insane.”

“He’s so cute,” Tony chimes in. “Do you get to sleep anything? I’m nervous about that.” His left hand is resting next to Clara’s on top of her visible baby bump. Amy lets out an audible snort upon hearing about her brother’s main cause for worry, but Isaac just grins.

“You get used to it. It’ll probably be worse for Clara anyway.”

“Great.” Clara grimaces, turning to Amy. “I can’t even sleep now! I either have a baby sleeping on top of my bladder or kicking me in the ribs for the whole night.”

“I remember.” She smiles, thinking back to the few times late in her pregnancy she’d made Jake sleep on the couch only because she couldn’t stand listening to his snoring on top of it all. “It sucks, and then everyone keeps telling you to sleep while you still can and you’re trying not to punch them.”

“Exactly!” Her sister-in-law laughs, tucking a strand of red-blonde hair behind her ear. “At least everyone says it’s worth it.”

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have done it so many times,” says Camila, and Clara looks relieved. “Oh, Amy, you need to hold Milo for a little while! He’s been in everyone’s arms except for yours today. Isaac, send him to Amy.”

“Oh.” She squirms in her seat, a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. “It’s okay. I was just going to look for Leah anyway -”

“Leah’s upstairs doing puzzles with Sarah and Samuel,” Isaac explains, referring to David’s two-year-old twins. “She’s fine. You can hold him, Ames.”

“I think I’m good… okay, no choice, I see.” Her younger brother’s already holding out the infant to her, and before she can adjust to the thought, there’s a tiny, yawning baby in her arms.

It’s achingly familiar, yet it feels like it’s been forever. 

At first, it’s like every muscle fiber in her body tenses with the sudden awareness that there's a fragile, helpless human in her arms and the weight of terrifying responsibility resting with her for a moment. It's been two years since Amy last held a newborn, and she certainly forgot how _ breakable _ they feel when they haven't learned to support their own head. Then Milo lets out a content sigh, his mouth twitching like he's smiling at her, and although she knows he's too small and it's likely just gas, the brief facial expression makes her feel chosen.

She's missed this, she realizes. Noting the classic Santiago baby appearance traits, the head of dark hair and the little button nose, she thinks of countless hours spent holding her own clingy newborn two years ago, and bites her lip when she remembers that she still has no idea when she’ll get to do it again. Milo’s adorable, and Amy's secretly wishing he could stay in her arms forever or she could steal him and take him home with her, but he's also a painful reminder of what she wants most and doesn't have yet.

“He likes you,” Isaac comments, nodding towards the infant. “You and Jake haven’t thought of having another one?”

She freezes at the sound of his question, instantly clueless about what constitutes a good reply. She could tell him the truth, of course, and probably receive a flood of well-meaning advice about the best ways to conceive, but doing so would lead to expectations. Santiagos aren’t known for struggling to have kids, and she’s terrified of handling a hoard of family members subtly trying to figure out whether or not she's pregnant every time they see her. It's enough pressure coming from herself. She doesn't need people adding to it - least of all her family. 

“Oh,” she says instead, avoiding eye contact by playing with one of Milo’s fists. “Well, we’re not sure yet.”

“Two years is the best age span between siblings,” Luis chimes in. “We always tried to aim for two years and our kids are _ super _ close.”

“Yes, yes, two years is perfect,” Camila agrees, nodding eagerly. “The adjustment is much more difficult when they’ve turned three, or four, and suddenly they’re not the youngest anymore… Sometimes I think Tony never got over his grudges against Simon!” 

“I’m telling you, mom, that’s _ not it _, we have a grudge because four years ago he made me do that awful cinnamon challenge that almost gave me an asthma attack and filmed it -”

“Two years is great,” Christian interrupts his younger brother’s story without remorse. “We went for two years between Isabel and Noah and it was perfect. You do want to have more than one kid, right?”

Amy has never wished harder for a baby in her arms to start crying. 

She needs to get away, out of the situation where she has to hear and answer these sudden intrusive questions, but Milo shows no signs of waking. She’s stuck with a panicky, claustrophobic sensation in her chest and a forced smile on her lips. 

“We do,” she replies to Christian’s question, weighing every word carefully. “We’re just not sure when.”

“No point in waiting,” says Isaac, looking at the baby in Amy’s arms. “I wish we’d had Milo earlier!”

There must be a lack of air in the room, or her allergy medicines have stopped working and are making her react to the dog, because she can’t shake the feeling she’s suffocating. She's feeling trapped even in the spacious kitchen, and although she knows everyone has their eyes fixed on Milo, she can't shake the feeling it's her they're staring at. 

She wonders if they're seeing right through her; if they somehow know about negative pregnancy tests of yesterday, or if they can sense her desperation and frustration in the fake smile plastered on her face.

“I suppose you never know,” she answers somehow, heart pounding too quickly. “I, uh… have to go to the bathroom. Do you want to hold him for a little while, Clara?”

Amy senses eyes on her as she sneaks out the kitchen, hurries through the hallway and grabs her coat before heading out and sitting down on the porch, but she can't bring herself to care. She has to fill her lungs with fresh air and get away from well-meaning but prying questions, or she’s going to have a full-on breakdown. 

There’s a layer of snow on the ground, too thin for any children or adults to be playing in but enough to give a sense of hope for a white Christmas. She scrapes her fingers through the minuscule ice crystals gathered on the wooden decking, drawing an uneven heart with her index finger and following it with another. 

_ You do want to have more than one kid, right? _

She draws a third, smaller heart below the two bigger ones.

_ You and Jake haven’t thought of having another one anytime soon? _

She draws a fourth tiny heart next to the third one.

_ No point in waiting. _

She hides her fist in the sleeve of her winter coat, rubbing it over her drawings and turning them into nothingness. She curses the fact that Jake’s working, that he and Rosa are following up some highly important leads today and their mission would likely be sabotaged if she called and interrupted her husband now, and she curses the fact that Leah’s having the time of her life playing with her cousins and would probably scream in protest if Amy tried to steal her for cuddles. 

It’s not too cold outside with her warm coat keeping her comfortable, but she’s still shivering, so she wraps her arms around herself and tries to blink away the tears taking form in her eyes.

She’s aware she’s being ridiculous. Having a baby takes more than a couple months of trying in many, many cases - the majority of them, even. She’s far from unique, yet a sneaking suspicion and vexing anxiety are lingering with her. 

_ No point in waiting. _

She puts one hand on her chest and one hand over her stomach, trying to focus on the fresh air flowing in through her nose and out through her mouth, filling and leaving her for each inhale and exhale.

“Just relax,” she whispers to herself, pretending it's Jake's voice saying the words, his unwavering belief that it will all be fine she's listening to. 

“Are you sure you’re still my sister? Have you had some kind of personality change?” 

“Huh?” Amy almost jumps at the sound of Julian’s voice, bringing her out of her focused breathing and forcing her to look up.

“You’re willingly outside in the cold weather,” he declares, slumping down next to her. “Even with a coat on, that's impressive for you.” She notes that he's only wearing a hoodie himself and seems unbothered by the temperature.

“I needed fresh air.”

“Because of Oscar? I swear his breed is supposed to be allergy-friendly, we researched that stuff in depth. Maybe your allergies are just undefeatable?”

“No, it’s fine as long as I don't pet him.” Amy places a hand on her brother's shoulder, squeezing it. “Oscar’s great. Leah's in love with him.”

“Isn't he amazing?” Julian's grin is comically wide, his eyes sparkling with undiluted pride. “He can sit, and roll, and catch, and play dead if he gets enough candy! Parenthood is incredible. I’m so glad our kids get along.” He doesn't entirely sound like he’s joking, and Amy can't help but laugh at his excitement. “So if it wasn't Oscar, why did you leave?”

“Were you listening to the conversation?”

“Eh, bits and pieces. How so?”

She sighs. “They - mom, and Isaac and Christian, mostly - interrogated me about whether we’re planning to have another baby anytime soon.”

“And you’re not?”

“We are! We’re actively trying for it.”

“Oh! Cool,” Julian nods, scratching the stubble on his chin. “I can get behind that. I wouldn't have anything against reproducing with those Peralta genes either if I could.” Amy elbows her brother in the side at that, probably way harder than necessary, and it makes him gasp in offense. “Hey! It’s just objective _ facts _ that he's attractive!”

“I’m telling Lucas you said that.”

“Lucas agrees. Either way - if you actually are trying, what's with the tears and the sudden storming out?”

“I didn't storm out,” she protests, and he gives her a meaning look of judgment as if to say _ yes, you did _. “And it's nothing.”

Julian snorts. “Sure it is.”

“It's not a big deal.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“It's just making me a little stressed is all.” 

“A little.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Amy groans, placing her head in both hands and quickly running her fingers through her hair. There's a knot in the back of it, and she busies herself trying to pull it apart as she speaks. “We are trying. It's just not going very well yet, I guess. It’s making me nervous, and it's not something I want to tell everyone in our family about, because, well… we’re not exactly known for struggling with that.”

Julian is silent, and there’s a moment where Amy wonders if she’s managed the impossible. For all their countless petty fights and differences, Julian has always had a reply to offer her. Sometimes he’s supportive, sometimes questioning, and sometimes he’s all over judging her decisions, but he never ignores her worries when she chooses to confide in him. It throws her off to see him take so long to answer her now, and she watches him twist the white gold wedding ring on his finger absentmindedly while he grimaces.

“No,” he says right as she starts to consider tapping him on the shoulder to make sure he’s conscious. “I guess we’re not known for struggling with anything. Has this… been a problem for a long time?”

“A couple of months.”

“...Is that a long time? I’m not great with this heterosexual business. I’m much better with waiting times for adopting a dog.”

The corner of her mouth twitches. “It’s not that long. But it’s longer when you don’t have a lot of time to begin with.” Julian looks about as perplexed as if she’d been trying to explain the intricate details of quantum physics to him, and she clarifies. “Fertility decreases as you age.”

“Right. Yeah.”

“I’m thirty-nine. Maybe I shouldn't panic _ yet _, but in a year, or two…” Amy shakes her head. “It gets really low. Higher chances of miscarrying. Chromosome variations. Premature birth. You name it. Basically, the sooner I get pregnant now, the better and safer it is for everyone.”

“I see.”

“So there's some time pressure,” she explains further, connecting her hands inside the coat sleeves to eliminate the cold that's started to seep in. “And it’s making me terrified something's wrong with me already. That it's not going to work. That we’ll never be able to have a second kid. I know that's maybe not the end of the world, but… I really, really want it, and I’d be heartbroken if it didn’t happen.”

A pair of stubborn, humiliating teardrops make their way down her cheeks at the thought, and she untangles her hands to quickly wipe them away. 

“I’m sure it'll work out, Ames.” Julian's smile is partly sympathetic and partly insecure when he speaks, like this subject is miles out of his comfort zone but he's trying his best anyway. “As you said, two months is nothing, right? Mom was like, 42 when she had Simon. Surely if anyone's got the genes for this, it’s our family.”

“Yeah. It's never a guarantee, though, and I can’t handle their questions. _ Two years is the best time between siblings_,” she imitates in an exaggerated high-pitched tone, and Julian laughs heartily. “As if I wasn’t already pressuring myself about the same thing. But I can't tell them that, because then they’d start asking.”

“Mm, our family does lack all understanding of what privacy is sometimes.” Julian grins. “_ There are several options even for gay men! Surrogates! Adoption! I read this article in a magazine where a pair co-parented with lesbians! _” His shrill imitation tone is awful and hilarious at the same time, making Amy snicker. “I think she was mad at me for weeks after I told her we were happy with a dog. She means well, but it just becomes a lot.”

“Doesn’t get easier when it’s something you already want, either.” 

“You’ll be fine.”

“Maybe. I hope so.”

“If not, I’m pro-dogs. They’re pretty much like children, except you don’t have to create a college fund for them. A win-win situation if it weren’t for the fact that owning a dog could probably kill you. But other than that!” Julian stretches his arms over his head, looking mighty proud of himself. “Solid.”

“I’m already busy trying to talk Jake out of buying a cat,” says Amy, massaging her temples at the thought. “But he’s managed to get Leah obsessed with them, so I think I’m losing.”

“_That’s _ why she’s calling Oscar a cat! Wow. Jake’s a genius.”

“Well, that and she’s two. And please don’t ever tell him that, because his ego would literally explode.”

Amy can feel her face going numb from the cold outside, a sudden gust of wind coming at them and making her eyes tear for a new reason. The fact that she’s lost track of time hits her, awakening an uneasiness and a sudden need to get inside and check up on how her daughter’s doing, so she gives Julian a quick, rare hug, and is surprised when he squeezes her back for a long time.

“Thanks for coming out,” she mumbles, and he nods.

“Of course. I just don’t like seeing you cry.”

“Aww, that’s kind of sweet.”

“You look so weird when you do,” he says with a smirk, and she rolls her eyes at the mock insult. “No one should have to see that.”

“Fuck off, Jules.”

“Yep. Now let’s go make sure our kids are still alive and haven’t eaten any couches. Is that a thing with human children too?”

~

**january**

It’s a good Christmas.

It’s a Christmas where Amy can allow herself some time to relax and unwind, put her worries aside and focus on her family during the ten days both her and Jake manage to garner off work. It’s a long-awaited and dearly welcomed break from early daycare drop-offs, ten-minute-dinners, and infinite planning to make sure nothing is forgotten. 

Instead there is time for slow wakeups, snuggling with Leah when she crawls into their bed in the early hours of the morning and giving in to her request of watching iPad in their bed only so they can keep their eyes closed for a little while longer. There's time for late-night conversations over a glass of wine that don't feel rushed because at least they don't have somewhere to be tomorrow, and there's time to properly see friends outside of work for the first time in what feels like forever. They go to dinner at Terry’s house, watch Rosa enjoy the indoor trampoline park even more than Leah does, and they gratefully accept Charles’ offer to babysit their daughter for a night. Amy figures the man has a specific motive in mind, but then Jake suggests they spend the night at a hotel and Leah gets ecstatic at the mention of watching Disney movies with her uncle Charles and Nikolaj, so she ends up saying yes. She’s only human, after all, and she’s not going to neglect the rare and precious chance of a sleep-in.

(The date also times _ mysteriously _ well with when she should be ovulating.)

(She does _ not _ want to ask.)

Even the yearly Christmas dinner with the Santiagos ends up being survivable. Although there are kids crying, odd snarky comments between Tony and Simon, and Leah outright refuses to wear anything but her sequined dinosaur shirt and glittery tights to the event, things proceed smoothly and Amy’s stress levels remain on the healthier part of the scale. She watches Jake hold and make funny faces at Milo and can feel her mom giving them meaning looks from across the room, but she breathes through it and silently thanks the Universe when Leah chooses that exact moment to climb onto Amy’s lap and ask if they can read one of her new books. Sure, part of her wishes she could be gifting her husband a crafted announcement with a baby onesie and a positive pregnancy test much like the ones she’s pinned on Pinterest, but the tender way he hugs her thank you after he opens his gift and sees the photo book filled with pictures with him and Leah, is more than enough to ease her sorrow. He gifts her a gold necklace with the letters J and L in separate miniature hearts, and when he tells her it’s so she can always be keeping them next to her own heart, she tears up and kisses him so long and ardently that he looks a little dazed, blinking with surprise when they part.

It’s a good New Year’s Eve, too. They spend the first part of the evening at the Holt-Cozner New Year’s Party, listening to their daughter proudly tell every guest she’s going to stay up until midnight, and then they try not to laugh when she passes out the moment she’s in her car seat at half-past nine. Jake and Amy end their year in pajamas on the couch, toasting in champagne just for the sake of it and going right to bed afterward.

_ Next year we’ll have another baby_, she thinks to herself before falling asleep about fifteen minutes into the new year, a new sense of shimmering optimism lingering with her. _ It has to have worked by then_.

January is hell. Everyone knows it, specifically, everyone who’s had children at daycare, because January means no one is healthy and neither Jake nor Amy manage a full week at work without taking time off to care for a sick child or themselves. Amy prays they’ll make it through without any cases of stomach flu, but such seems to have been too much to ask, because she’s woken up by devastating crying from Leah’s room on the one night Jake’s doing a night shift and she _ knows _ before the two-year-old’s even started retching. 

She doesn’t get any sleep that night.

She doesn’t get any sleep the next night either, because when Leah stops throwing up and Amy feels like she can breathe again when the child keeps some applesauce down and asks if she can watch Doc McStuffins, it only takes three hours before Jake starts complaining about feeling sick. 

January must surely be some twisted sort of a joke, she thinks, and disinfects her hands an extra time before she goes to remind her very miserable husband that he’s not actually dying. 

It’s only natural, amid the virus-filled havoc, that it takes her a few days to realize she hasn’t gotten her period. 

Come to think of it, she is feeling a bit nauseous. The excessive fatigue and emotional imbalance she knows were early symptoms in her first pregnancy is harder to distinguish from the exhaustion after two intense days of caring for poorly family members, but she’s a mom and a Santiago and she categorically never gets sick. 

She gives the nausea a day, waiting for it to break out into the same flu Jake and Leah are already victims of, but it doesn’t. It stays the same.

Amy’s never been so excited about nausea in her life.

She waits until Leah’s gone to bed, falling asleep in Amy’s arms on the couch. The two-year-old’s still not quite her energetic, bubbly self and has been stuck to her parents like a needy band-aid for most of the day, and it could have been tiring if it hadn’t also meant lots of cuddles. Right now, though, Amy's arms and back are happy to get a break from carrying the kid around while she lays down next to Jake instead, spooning him and receiving a grateful smile when she starts playing with his hair.

“How are you feeling, babe?”

“Dying. I think I might be dead already,” he groans before turning his head and looking her in the eyes with feigned seriousness. “Please say something nice at my funeral and promise me you'll take care of Charles when I'm gone.”

“You're not dying, Jake.”

“How d’you know?”

“Because you haven't thrown up since last night and you only have a slight fever,” she reminds him, feeling his lukewarm forehead. “You're fine.”

“I am definitely much better with a hot girl draped on top of me,” he says with a smug expression, his hand gently stroking under her old NYPD shirt up her back. She rolls her eyes, because looks haven't exactly been the top priority for the last three days and she's not sure when she last washed her hair, yet Jake never stops making an effort to charm her. “How are you feeling, Ames?”

“Actually, I've been kind of nauseous all day. But I'm not sure it's stomach flu.”

“Huh? What else would it be?”

“I'm thinking,” she presses her index finger to his chest, “maybe I should take a pregnancy test.”

“Oh.” He squints at her. “Why?”

Amy gives him an exasperated look.

“Okay, _ yeah_, but you’ve also spent the last three days taking care of your sick family. Leah was throwing up on us. Are you sure you're not just ill?”

“I have a good feeling,” she insists, because she _ does _ \- there's a renewed sense of hope and blind faith that perhaps this could be it, resting with her. “And I never get sick.”

“Once again, your daughter was vomiting on you and I'm still convinced I might be dying. This is a brutal virus, Ames.”

“Clearly.” She runs her fingers through his messier-than-usual curls again, and his mouth shapes into a content smile despite his still worried eyes. “I’m still going to take that test, though. In case.”

“In case,” he repeats slowly. “Well, it’s your body.”

“Exactly.” She kisses his forehead. “You get it. I’ll be right back.”

Amy takes these tests with ease now. She’s been doing them two, three times extra following every first negative in a desperate hope for the result to change. False negatives are common, test results are safer the longer after a missed period they’re taken, and there’s no reason _ not _ to test an extra time. Long story short, she's becoming a pro at taking pregnancy tests, but so far the single lines and minus signs are staying the same.

She says a silent prayer this one will be an exception. 

Plastic cap off, pee for five seconds, plastic cap back on, lay the test flat and wait while trying not to freak out. She manages all steps but the final. 

She carries the little plastic stick out to the living room coffee table gently as if it had been made of glass.

“Three minutes,” she informs Jake, and he nods while she sets a timer on her phone. In three minutes, they'll know whether her good feeling is right or dead wrong, and the nausea increases but this time Amy thinks it's nerves.

She doesn't want to stare, but she does anyway, waiting for a second line to appear no matter how faint. Jake sits up next to her, taking her hand and rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, and she manages a weak smile without lifting her eyes from the test.

The timer goes off without a second line appearing. 

Amy lifts the test to inspect it closer, but there's not even a hint of anything. She gives it to Jake for a second opinion, and he inspects it just as closely before shaking his head and mumbling a quiet _ sorry, babe._

She's not pregnant this month either.

“It’s okay, Ames. Three months is nothing.”

She doesn’t realize there are tears in her eyes until they’re trailing down her cheeks and Jake’s hand is there, wiping them away. She presses on his wrist to move it, make him stop because she’s not okay and she doesn’t want him pressuring her to feel anything but the searing disappointment coursing through her veins.

“It’s not,” she says, shaking her head. “I just feel so stupid. I thought I was feeling something.”

“You’re not stupid,” he tells her, and the tenderness in his voice erases her annoyance. “You want this really bad. I do, too, but… well, it’s not my body.”

“Not your body being a massive failure.”

“Hey!” Jake holds up one hand like he’s making a stop motion. “No one talks that way about my wife!”

“Ha-_ ha_.”

“I’m serious! You don’t get to say those things, okay? You know it’s not true.” She hums a doubting sound, and he sighs, placing his arm around her shoulders. “Ames, we’ll just try again. We already did a great job once, and there are moments I wish we hadn’t, because if we didn’t have a toddler in daycare I would be so much healthier… okay, I still don’t regret it,” he adds. “Except maybe the daycare part, because I swear I’m sick all the time.”

“You love our daycare! Without it, you’d never get to eat that Scientology-guy’s chocolate chip cookies at every parent meeting.”

“Fair point. Craig, right? _ Weirdly _ good baker. Fine - I guess I don’t regret the daycare either. But you’re about to.”

This time, she’s the one squinting at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Still feeling nauseous?”

“Kind of, why are you… oh, _ no _.”

“Oh, yes. Your immune system isn’t undefeatable!” 

“It’s still better than yours,” she counters, and Jake just grins.

“But not undefeatable.”

She gives him a slow nod, trying to hide the despondency on her face as she takes the negative test from his hands.

“I’m just going to throw this away.”

Amy is certain of it when she wakes up three hours later, almost throwing herself out of bed to make it to the bathroom in time - January is officially and unquestionably _ hell_. 

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you are born in january: i apologize but i cannot change the truth.
> 
> oh boy i have so much to say about this chapter hahah. first of all, JULIAN!!!! my man! my all-time favorite santiago brother! sorry lin-manuel miranda!! i don’t know why i ever believed i couldn’t write original characters because i sure do stan this gay santiago brother and his husband and dog.  
side-note, david has twins the same age as leah because obviously if amy’s having a baby then david’s having two. 
> 
> also, the idea of jake, amy, rosa and leah at the indoor trampoline park has given me SO MUCH LIFE this last week.
> 
> ANYWAY.
> 
> i hope you liked this! there’s not that much drama yet, but i promise you it’s coming. boooy what have i done. why am i doing this to myself. i hope you stay along for the ride! i have to do quite a bit of research for chapters three and four, so i can’t really make a safe promise about when they’ll be up, but i promise you i am always working at this fic and i won’t abandon it unless everyone suddenly starts hating me and stop reading OR i’m abducted by aliens. i think those are the two options. i will finish this. 
> 
> the bit about craig is, as always, a shoutout to my dear siân. thank you for the scale 1:1 oil portrait of him, which i have put up in my kitchen in a 18th-century-style golden frame.  
(ily.)
> 
> massive thanks to tilde for beta-reading this as well!!
> 
> you know the drill i assume, but if you enjoyed this, please leave kudos or a comment! if you don’t know what to write; i promise you that i am grateful for every comment and do not judge anyone! but something that always cheers me up is hearing about people’s favourite parts, quotes, descriptions, reactions, details, you name it. please let me know what you thought was funny. i personally love julian not being too invested in this heterosexual business - i support him. and i love jake asking amy to say something nice at his funeral. and him feeling "way better with a hot girl draped on top of him" because god that man loves his wife so much and you can't tell me he wouldn't go the extra mile to tell her that even when they're tired toddler parents.
> 
> also, since i've seen it in a couple of comments already; give me your theories on this fic! what do YOU think is going to happen??
> 
> and feel free to talk to me on tumblr as well. i don’t bite (unless that’s something you’re into). 
> 
> lots of love to all of you <333


	3. even if we're breaking down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy searches for - and gets - some answers, but decision-making turns out to be a bumpier ride than expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi hi!!
> 
> i really am not doing great with updating this too often. i apologise for that, but i promise you it's because i don't want to half-ass these chapters and they're really important to me. i worked hard on this one and i hope it shows.
> 
> before you read, i want to give the disclaimer that infertility is a sensitive and tricky topic and people go far longer and have far worse situations with it than this fic is portraying. it is something that can vary so much and this fic is not in any way supposed to be ‘a perfect example’. it's different for every one and this is made up, even if i'm trying to make it as realistic as possible.
> 
> another disclaimer: i research A LOT for this fic, but i am not a med student or doctor or anythging, so there could still be inaccuracies. rest assured i have tried my very best to write it as accurately as possible but there might still be errors. i also am not american and the system there confuses me, so i apologise for any extra errors regarding that.
> 
> that's enough babbling for the pre-note, right? okay. BUCKLE UP. maybe get yourself a hot beverage and some snacks and enjoy this long, long, very intense chapter. mwah!

**february**

The first days are always worst.

The first days after the start of another period, another negative test, the first days of knowing that _no, it didn't work this time either, _are always darkest. There's no trace of the enthusiasm she feels every time there's a positive result on her ovulation tests, no hint of the careful confidence each time her period is a day or two late. Instead, Amy feels both like she's constantly on the verge of tears and like she'll never experience an emotion again. Excruciating pain, then complete numbness. Everything, then nothing. 

Each month, she wishes for her life to pause for a moment, letting her hide underneath the warm comforter for days without talking to anyone. Each month, it continues without lenience. 

She still has to wake up in the mornings, get herself ready, make sure everyone wears clothes and eats breakfast and gets to wherever they’re supposed to be. She has to get through her workday, filled with assignments and must-dos and complaints and petty arguments, and when she’s finally done, there’s a daycare pick-up and food shopping and a full evening remaining. 

Her life won’t give her a _break_, won’t give her a chance to retreat into a corner and scream her lungs out in frustration over why her body's not cooperating, why she's not getting pregnant when it happened near effortlessly the last time. She finds herself getting jealous of her two-year-old, who currently handles most of her frustrations by laying down on the floor and screaming until she's red in the face. Compared to the torture of maintaining the illusion that everything's fine and she's not falling into pieces, Amy feels like a couple conspicuous, falsetto anger screams of her own would be quite the relief. 

Adulthood is truly overrated at times.

She keeps going despite her bitterness and anxiety, because if she stops, everything will fall apart, and if everything falls apart, she has to put it back together. She lets her life continue despite the heaviness in her heart, because it _has to_, so she forces a smile and curses the fact that for some reason, everyone around her seems to be pregnant or have a newborn.

She doesn't know if it's solely because she’s paying more attention, but she swears they're _everywhere_. A beat cop in her squad, a witness she helps interview, a stranger next in line to her at Starbucks and a teacher at Leah's daycare, the latter prompting the toddler to ask her first curious questions about where babies come from - specifically, how one got _inside_ her teacher. Amy makes an honest, well-intentioned attempt to give a simplified explanation of two people who love each other very much, but it turns out Leah's major concern is whether or not Miss Edwards _ate_ the baby living inside her tummy and whether or not that means someone could eat her, too.

(“Jake, _please_ stop telling your daughter about how you’ve been friends with a cannibal.”)

(“It's not my fault she picks up on everything!”)

It feels like a taunt, like the world is laughing at her while she tries to keep it together. She can’t even get a break when she stops by _Target_ on the way to pick up Leah from daycare. She's only picking up socks, some emergency groceries, and cold medicine, but of course, she all but walks right into a display of Valentine’s Day-themed babywear and has to stop herself from standing there and staring at the tiny, heart-patterned, onesies and pacifiers. 

Amy has to remind herself they have boxes of Leah's old baby clothes left in the attic, so she shouldn't have been going too crazy with buying new baby clothes even if she had been pregnant. Even so, she cannot shake the stinging reminder that ifthere _had_ been a baby on the way, she would have been perfectly able to buy the impossibly soft pajamas with multicolored hearts and a matching hat, and the thought wouldn't have felt deeply, intensely _wrong_. 

She puts the item back, fast as if it had burnt her.

There’s traffic on the way to the daycare, enough to make her about ten minutes late and double her stress levels. Her two-year-old might not know the clock, but she’s become easily worried as of late, and the catastrophe part of Amy's brain pictures a devastated child crying about whether her parents are ever coming to get her. She rushes into the building all out of breath from stress and anxiety, only to find out Leah is happily playing with building blocks and shows zero interest in saying goodbye to her friends to go home. Amy decides to spare herself an argument today and lets her daughter play for ten minutes extra while she sits down on the floor to catch her breath. 

Although Leah’s only a toddler yet, Amy keeps being surprised by the tremendous pride she feels watching this child learn about and slowly take on the world. She watches her communicate with the other kids around her even on limited vocabulary, watches her construct simple towers and laugh when she pushes them over and the blocks scatter, sees her wave goodbye to her friend when another parent comes to pick up one of the kids she was playing with. 

Of all her achievements in life, Amy can’t quite grasp the fact that she - admittedly with some help - created this person who’s becoming more and more her own individual by the day. It’s all moving so fast, each day bringing new surprises and challenges, and it’s all making her increasingly certain their lives would be even more of a wonderful whirlwind with the addition of another child. 

She’s thought about the possibility of not having one, too. During her most exhausting days, when the scheduling and stressing and ovulation testing feels like a third full-time job on top of the two she already has, she’s toyed with the thought of ignoring it, but she always ends up returning to her original wish. There’s certain guilt to it, a nagging thought in the back of her head wondering if she’s ungrateful. She already _has _the best kid in the world, and maybe she’s egoistic to want another. She’s struggling even to explain it to herself, how it has nothing to do with ungratefulness for the child she has and everything to do with how she always pictured herself having at least two kids, how it feels like another baby would make their already perfect family that much _more _perfect. If they’re awesome like this, a fourth member would make them sensational, and if one kid is magical, Amy imagines two would be out of this world.

She just wishes the second one could hurry up already. Beginning to exist, for example, would be a great start.

She’s vaguely aware of what’s happening in the room, too tired and stressed and in her head to notice much, but she snaps back to reality once Leah stands up and walks over to her, wrapping her arms around Amy’s chest. 

“Sad,” she says, and Amy’s confused because the toddler seemed perfectly fine a minute ago, but then she clarifies. “Mama’s sad.”

_Oh._

“Yeah,” she admits, stroking Leah’s hair and hugging her back, feeling her earlier so high heartbeat return to a normal pace once her two-year-old’s in her arms. “I’m a little sad today. That’s okay. Everyone’s sad sometimes.”

“Wait.” Leah squirms out of Amy’s grip, disappearing to the chest of drawers in the corner of the room and finding the one with her picture on it. She pulls out the stuffed animal in the shape of a lion they keep at the daycare for nap-time and comfort, runs over to Amy again, and places the toy in her lap. “Better now.”

Amy wants to cry again, but this time, it’s tears of love, and pride, and gratefulness for this shockingly emotionally intelligent child who she can’t help but wrap in another hug, holding her tightly and kissing her cheeks until she starts giggling. 

“I’m much better now,” she agrees, and Leah shines up. 

“I’m nice!” She points to herself, looking mighty proud, and Amy laughs at the beautiful confidence.

“You are so nice, baby. Do you think we can go home now? I know your dad promised he’d make spaghetti tonight. Can you say spaghetti?”

“Spaghetti!” Leah exclaims, and then she’s out in the hallway and already busy trying to put her shoes on the wrong feet by the time Amy’s stood up.

Each month her life keeps refusing to pause. No matter how tiring and exhausting it gets at times, she suspects it might be for the best. 

\- 

For all the things not working out for them within the whole having-a-baby project, the process of finding time to try and _make_ said baby on the right days every month works smoother than Amy expected it to. Sure, it's not the most romantic feeling to have a sense of obligation hovering over them for the specific days, and it brings an odd pressure to it she's not sure she enjoys, but it works. They make time, somehow, and they get all the way until month five of trying before they have to take to desperate measures.

“To be clear,” Amy mutters before Jake's even closed the supply closet door behind him. “I really don’t like that we're doing this here.”

“Yeah, you repeated that about twenty or so times when I suggested it.” He smirks, locking the door carefully. “It's okay. Also, the cameras don't reach into that corner.”

“Still. The whole thing. I was voted -”

“Most appropriate, I know.” The cheeky smile he gives her makes her feel a bit less awful about their decision. “God, I can't believe you _agreed _to this.”

“You should make sure I don't change my mind, then.”

“Oh, I will.”

He sounds confident, and it makes her snort with laughter because doing this at the precinct feels absurd and wildly inappropriate, but in a way, there's something about them sneaking around - the time-efficacy and detailed planning of it - making her find it kind of hot, too. Hotter than she'd be willing to admit. This baby-planning thing must truly be making her crazy, Amy thinks, but there’s no time to lose and this is not the time for analyzing. 

She closes the distance between them, cupping his face with her hands as she would for any gentle kiss, only this time, she puts enough force in her movement to press him up against the wall as their lips, then tongues, meet.

It’s clear from the way he gasps, and from the way his hands wave before finding their place on her upper back, that he wasn’t expecting her to take charge like this. It spurs her on, because a flustered Jake is high up on the list of her favorite Jakes, and god, does she love seeing and feeling him react to her in _that_ way. It’s an unambiguous and cherished reminder of how even after eight years, she’s able to surprise him as much as he can surprise her, and if anything, she’s learned exactly how it’s done. 

They're both panting when she lets go, getting worked up in the competitive heat. Amy uses the quick break to get to work on his top plaid buttons and Jake's not slow to follow with her uniform, but she's not letting him take the lead in this game yet. The unbuttoned plaid allows her to pull the collar of his grey t-shirt aside. At first, the kisses she presses to the top of his collarbone and the crook of his neck are light and teasing, but then they turn into sharper biting and he straight-up _moans_.

If she couldn't feel his enthusiasm before, she definitely can now. It doesn't leave her unaffected; she subtly presses herself even closer to him, and while she's sucking hard enough on his shoulder to leave a mark, his hands are roaming along her back, under her shirt, playing with her belt for a second before she moves his hand away.

“Don't be impatient,” she warns with another sly bite to his neck. “If we're going to do this here, I'm in charge.”

“You're really out to kill me, huh?”

“Yeah, but you love me.” Amy punctuates the sentence with a kiss, feeling him smile against her lips.

“I do,” he breathes as her hands wander down, taking time to trace patterns with her nails along his lower back. “I really, really do.”

“I stand by this being a stupid idea,” she mumbles when they’re catching their breath, trying to return to their previous states of dress with the help of a phone flashlight in the half-darkness, because of course the lighting in this place is busted. Amy considers it a miracle she could keep herself from having a panic attack thanks to claustrophobia, but she supposes determination and enough distraction are powerful tools.

Jake snickers, fumbling with the buttons of his plaid while she holds the phone’s flashlight for him. “You’re acting like you didn’t enjoy it.”

“I did,” she says, rolling her eyes at him. “Doesn’t make it any less inappropriate.”

“It was fun, though.”

“It was.” She kisses the tip of his nose, adjusting his collar to hide the beginning of a red and purple shadow at the nape of his neck. “I suppose even desperate measures can be fun sometimes.”

“Even desperate measures can be fun sometimes, title of your sextape.”

“Oh my god, shut _up_.”

~

**march**

“So what’s the verdict for this month?” Jake joins her in the bathroom as she puts the test down to develop. He’s holding two cups of tea and gives her one of them before sitting down next to her, leaning against the bathtub. “Did our crazy workplace rule-breaking pay off?”

“Three minutes, grasshopper.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grins. “But what do you _think_? Any hunches? Gut feelings? Visions in a dream?”

Amy snorts, taking a sip of the green chai tea. “Certainly no dream visions. I don't know. Maybe, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much. What's your guess?”

“I'm feeling good about this one,” Jake declares, nodding towards the white and blue plastic stick placed on the floor tiles a foot in front of them. “Let's hope I'm right.”

“Yeah. Let's hope.”

She leans her head on his shoulder as they wait, and his right arm wraps around her back, stroking her hair while they stare at the tiny display window. There's always a curious atmosphere to these moments, before there's been any disappointment and there's still hope of a positive result, and she revels in knowing that until the timer goes off, there's a chance. Until the test has finished developing, there's a possibility of their fourth family member existing inside her - the size of a poppy seed, but _existing_. 

Perhaps month five of trying could be their month. If not, Amy thinks she might just go crazy. 

The timer rings, pulling her out of her hopeful dreaming, and she turns it off with a quick tap before reaching for the test.

She was prepared for it. Yet, it feels like a betrayal to see the single line appearing without a trace of another.

“Nope,” she sighs. “Nothing this month either.”

“It's just an early test,” Jake suggests, a trace of hopefulness remaining in his eyes. “You said they're not always accurate that early, and you’ve not gotten your period yet, which means there's hope, right?”

Amy shakes her head. “These tests have been accurate all the other months. This body,” she points to herself, “isn’t pregnant, and apparently, it doesn’t want to be.”

“Come on, Ames. Five months isn't that long.”

“It isn’t?”

“... No? We’ll try again. It’s not a big deal, babe. It's nothing.”

It’s the same phrase again; the one she’s heard a million times at this point - from Jake, herself, Julian, a friendly stranger on a web forum during a particularly anxious night a few weeks ago. If she hears it another time in the same lighthearted, happy-go-lucky tone the pessimist part of her brain makes Jake’s voice sound like, she’s going to be seriously tempted to punch that person. 

She doesn’t, this time, but she does question it. 

“When does it become something?”

Jake furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”

"Because everyone always says the same thing. One month is nothing. Three months is nothing.” Amy twirls the negative test between her fingers. “Four months was nothing, either. So when does it become _something_?"

“I don't think I get it -”

“When,” she inhales, “does it go from _nothing_ to _something_? Where do you draw the line?” 

“Oh.” He grimaces, taking the test from her and inspecting it for a second before placing it on top of the trashcan. “I actually don't know, babe.”

“I think I'm going to try scheduling a thorough checkup,” she says, deciding it as she speaks it out loud. “Just so we can exclude anything being seriously wrong.”

“Sure, okay.” Jake nods, pressing a kiss to her forehead and holding her impossibly closer. She doesn't protest, because her dismay and dejection are never quite as severe in the safety of his embrace, and although she feels like a failure who keeps being betrayed by her own body, as long as he’s holding her, it’s easier to breathe. “If you think it's going to make you feel better.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, and at that moment, she can't imagine any knowledge being worse than the no man’s land of confusion and desperation she’s begun to feel stuck in. “I think it's going to make me feel better.”

There’s no reason for them to stay there, cross-legged on the bathroom floor with Jake holding her close and stroking her back without speaking, but neither makes any attempts to move. Moving means having to move on, and though Amy knows they have to and they will, it seems impossible to do so straight away. If Jake is aching to do so, she’s not sure, but at least he doesn’t rush her - he sits there and lets her process until she forces herself to draw back and take a deep breath before standing up.

“It’s going to be okay,” he reminds her when she finally does, and she manages a weak smile upon noting the devotion and steadfastness in his gaze as he says it.

She places her hand over his heart, as has become their little well-ingrained habit and silent love language over the years, and he holds it, rubbing his thumb over hers. “I know.”

At least the two of them are staying intact, she thinks, and allows herself a moment’s gratefulness. 

\- 

Amy's lived through her fair share of situations where she's been thankful for the fact that her job forces her to practice authoritativeness on a daily basis. She never imagined the process of trying to get an appointment with a fertility doctorto be one of them, but it very much is. 

It takes nine different calls, one forgetful medical secretary, ten requests for her to_ hold for a quick moment _that in two cases ends up being several minutes, two times taking calls inside the evidence locker to avoid being spotted, and one incident of screaming into a pillow in frustration, but eventually, she scribbles down an appointment set for next week at a nearby fertility clinic in her calendar and does a short victory dance out of pure relief. Then Leah spots her doing so and starts laughing, and what was supposed to be a brief victory gesture quickly becomes a smaller dance party and makes an already good afternoon even better. 

Amy goes to bed with a new sense of hope that night. She’s going to go to the appointment, get some shot or supplement to solve whatever little dysfunction is happening with her body, and everything’s going to be fine. For once, she’s certain about it.

She’s certain about it all the way up until she steps foot inside the actual clinic. 

As positive a picture as she painted this place in her head while doing research, being there is stranger than she’d expected, making her feel oddly misplaced and uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the fact that Jake’s not with her, that their packed schedules forced them to choose between both going to the same appointment and being able to get a time somewhere in the nearest month, that’s making her feel off. He’s sent her a cheerful _Good Luck_-text with double exclamation points and a trio of heart emojis, and she musters a smile as she replies to it and he sends a bitmoji back, but he’s not _there_ and it’s making her feel a lot more vulnerable than she would in his presence. 

_I wish you were here_, she writes, and it’s a mere second before he’s written back, _me too_.

The waiting room walls are decorated with at least twenty framed photographs of newborn babies. Like a wall of fame, Amy thinks, snapping a picture to send to Jake, but a wall of babies. She wonders if they’re supposed to serve as encouragement, some kind of goal picture, and wonders how smart of a design choice such is for a clinic that could be meeting infertile couples daily. Then she scratches the thought, because it shouldn't matter to her - she's not one of them.

She's going to be fine. It's nothing but a safety check.

She still wishes Jake could have been there.

“You’ve been pregnant before, correct?” The fertility doctor Amy’s meeting manages to make her feel more at ease. The woman - Dr. Thompson, she introduces herself - can't be many years older than Amy, has light hair and a comforting aura about her smile, and from the furious pace with which she's scribbling on her notepad while asking questions, Amy assumes she's thorough. A good sign, she figures.

“Yeah, I have a two-year-old.”

“How long did it take for you to conceive the first time?”

“A month? Really fast.”

Dr. Thompson taps her pen against the notepad. “So this is the first time you're having trouble with it.”

“Yes.” Amy nods, pressing her nails into her wrist one by one to keep focus. “It seems weird to me, because my mother had eight kids and was 42 when she had her last, so I figured…”

“Genetics isn’t always a guarantee.” The doctor offers Amy an excusing smile. She supposes it should be a calming act, but it has the opposing effect. “And how long have you been trying now?”

“Five-six months.”

“Tracking your ovulation?”

“Yes.” _Obsessively_, Amy wants to add. 

Dr. Thompson nods, making another note on her pad. “We do recommend couples over 35 to come in if nothing's happening after six months of actively trying, so it's good you're here. I'll ask you a few additional questions, and then we can start with the physical exam. Does that seem okay?”

“Sure,” Amy hears herself lie.

It doesn't feel okay, not in any way whatsoever. She shouldn’t be sitting here, answering weirder questions about her medical and reproductive history than ever before in her life. She shouldn’t be alone, because Jake should be there to help, answering questions for her when her voice fails and making her feel at ease by holding her hand. There shouldn't be a sense of dread lingering with her, refusing to let go. 

She’s not supposed to be here. 

This should just _work_. 

There's a physical exam, which is uncomfortable, and bloodwork, which is fine. There’s a quick ultrasound, and she tries to shake the thought of how the last time she had one, she saw her then-unborn daughter wiggle around on the screen. There are information-heavy brochures on everything from a list of procedures to financing and insurance coverage, a quick run-through of the tests Jake needs to have at his appointment the next day, and then, it’s finally over and Amy leaves feeling yet more confused than before.

It can take some time for the bloodwork results to come in, she’s informed. At first, she tries to avoid thinking about it, utilizing every accessible distraction to stay sane. She starts preparing an extra slideshow about community engagement for the precinct, takes Leah to a bonus Mommy-and-Me art class which ends in a lot of laughter and a long bath for both of them, and starts binging a new TV show together with Jake in the evenings. She even tries experimenting in the kitchen to make time pass, but after accidentally setting off the fire alarm at 7 a.m. on a Saturday and waking up all her family plus two bitter next-door neighbors, she gives up. 

\- 

Three days pass. A voice in the back of her head begins to whisper that _if everything looked good, surely they should have gotten back to you by now_, and she lays awake staring at the ceiling for most of the night.

Five days pass. She googles the costs of fertility treatments on her phone during her lunch break, doing the math first in her head and then with a calculator on a pastel pink post-it note. Jake asks her what she’s writing when he stops by her desk in the afternoon, and she quickly stows away the note in a drawer and tells him it’s nothing. 

Eight days pass. They clean out Leah’s dresser from clothes she’s growing out of, and Amy places at least fifteen items she’s previously wanted to use for another child in the donation pile before Jake stops her. 

Ten days pass. At this point, Amy’s certain something is wrong with her, anxious to get the bad news over with. She checks her phone a million times and hovers with her thumb over the clinic’s number for the entire day, but there’s nothing.

On day eleven, she gets a call. 

She's in the car, having parked in the precinct’s garage with five minutes to spare when the melodic signal sounds from her pocket and every muscle in her body tenses, every other thought dissipating in an instant when she brings the phone to her ear.

“Amy Santiago.”

“Amy, hi. I hope I’m not interrupting anything - do you have time to talk?” Dr. Thompson sounds upbeat and chattery on the phone, and Amy finds it provoking. She's already prepared for the worst, and cheeriness has no meaning when all she wants to do is to rip off the band-aid. 

“It's fine,” she says, glancing at the panel board’s digital clock. “Thanks. Did the results come back?”

“Yes, yes,” Dr. Thompson rambles, and Amy's stomach twists. “I have your blood work results. Everything else looked good, but your AMH level is a bit lower than I’d like to see it in your age group.”

“My AMH level.” She knows she’s stumbled across the word while googling, but the definition slips her mind.

“It’s a hormone that gives a reflection of your ovarian reserve, so roughly how many eggs you have left,” Dr. Thompson explains, talking slower. “The results look like yours is diminished.”

There’s the familiar, panicked feeling she’s felt so many times in her life - like someone is tying a rope around her lungs and pulling it. Amy has to keep forcing air in and out of her mouth, telling herself she can’t panic, not yet.

“How low are they?” She asks, and Dr. Thompson tells her two decimal numbers before explaining further. 

“It’s not catastrophic, by any means. You could still get pregnant. You should be aware, though, that a lower ovarian reserve is usually connected to fewer high-quality eggs, so it might be difficult for you on your own.”

The corners of her field of vision are getting blurry, and she closes her eyes to try and focus. Her voice sounds enfeebled in comparison to the doctor’s clear articulation, but she has more questions. 

“Is it anything I’ve done? Is there anything I can do?”

“I would believe it’s random. Your ovarian reserve does get lower with age, but for some, it happens a bit earlier than it should. As for what you can do…” There’s a sigh on the other end of the phone, and Dr. Thompson’s tone changes to a graver one that sends a chill down Amy’s spine. “Time is of the essence here. Unfortunately, once this decline sets in, it’ll continue. If you want to get pregnant, I would recommend you start treatment immediately to have the best chances.”

“Do you mean IVF?”

“I believe it could be your best option, yes. Is it something you’ve had time to discuss with your husband?”

“Uhm - no.” She twists the silver wedding band on her left fourth finger, one way and then the other. “ Could we - could you give us some time to decide?”

“Of course.” The cheerful tone returns. “Actually, I would like to see you again in two days to go over this more closely in person and do another ultrasound. Perhaps you could let me know then what you’ve decided and we could discuss how to move forward?”

“Yeah, sure.” 

“Perfect, then. Take care,” Dr. Thompson chirps, and Amy knows she should return the polite wish, but it’s all she can do to press the red circle and put her phone in her lap before the panic attack hits her full force. 

She ends up working from home that day. 

_Working_ is a half-truth at best; she does the bare minimum, then spends the rest of the day laying on the bed with the lights turned off and googling feverishly, trying to find out all the information until the medical terms and her anxiety medication makes her dizzy. Jake texts her once an hour to ask if she's okay, if she's sure he shouldn't leave and go take care of her if she's feeling sick, but she waves him off decisively, telling him she's just tired.

Tonight, she'll have to face reality and tell him, but for a few hours, she can lay unmoving in the darkness of their bedroom and pretend none of this is happening. 

She doesn't want it to be. She wants her body to do its thing, get pregnant quickly and naturally and bless her with another beautiful child like it's done masterfully once before. She doesn't want it to be shutting down, doesn't want needles, medications or expensive treatments in order to have a baby. She doesn't want this.

Still, the more she researches, the more it stands clear it's her best option. 

She gets her notebook to go over the costs and insurance options another time. 

\- 

Jake must truly have been worried about her, because he offers to both cook dinner and clean up the kitchen by himself. Amy puts Leah to bed, feeling less heartbroken when the toddler chuckles heartily at the nighttime stories they’re reading and falls asleep clutching the beloved stuffed lion. She stays for a few minutes after Leah drifts off, sitting on the carpet wondering if anything on Earth looks more peaceful than a sleeping child, and leaves first when she feels tears threatening to form at the thought of whether she’ll ever get to hold her own sleeping newborn again. 

She has to talk to Jake.

She finds him standing at the kitchen sink, cursing violently over how _impossible_ it is to remove burnt rice from a pot. She kisses his cheek and tells him to let it soak in soapy water for a while, and he grumbles something about wanting everything done so they can focus on relaxing for the rest of the night, getting a chance to watch _Jeopardy!_ and snuggle without anything to stress them out. She has to close her eyes and clench her fists before saying the words she’s been avoiding the entire day - the words to make it all real. 

“I got a call back from the fertility doctor today.”

“Uh-huh.” His tone is unsuspecting, but he raises his eyebrows when he sees her tight-lipped expression. “What did they say?”

“I think we need to talk.”

“Oh.”

She sits down as she goes through what was said in the call, staring at the dark wood of their dining table when she can’t make herself look right at him. She goes through each point, patiently replying when he asks for clarification and telling him about the research she’s done, what conclusions she’s drawn about their best options. He nods slowly as she speaks, and though Amy considers herself a master at interpreting Jake Peralta’s facial expressions after nearly eight years in a relationship with him, he’s unreadable to her at this moment. 

“So…” She’s braiding her fingers again, trying to keep her hands occupied with something other than picking at the skin of her fingers until they bleed. It’s already happened once today. “Long story short, they want to know if we’re doing IVF or not. And they want to know in two days.”

“Okay.” Jake sighs. “Well… we’re not, are we?”

She looks up at him. “What do you mean? Of course we are.”

He blinks. “We are?”

“Yeah?” She scrunches her forehead, and he gives her a look she recognizes from hundreds of interrogations when a witness has said something unexpected and he’s calculating whether or not he thinks they’re telling the truth. “We have to do IVF. It’s my best chance to pregnant. Our best chance to have a baby.”

“Do we have to, really? They said you _could _get pregnant naturally. You mentioned those supplements?”

“IVF is likelier by far. It’s the best option.”

He opens his mouth as if he’s on his way to say something, then closes it, turning around and starting to scrub at the rice-stained pot again. 

“Look, I don’t love it either.” Her voice is sterner now. “I’m not exactly hyped about shooting hormones into my stomach with needles, but it’s our best shot. What’s the issue?”

“The needles you mentioned? The money we don’t have unlimited resources of? The time we have even less of?”

“We’d solve those things! I’m a lieutenant, insurance could pay for a couple of cycles - I already looked everything up. ”

“Of course you did,” he says, but it’s not with his usual fondness - he’s shorter, almost colder when he speaks. “Fine. But it might not even work, you know?”

“It’s at least more likely to!” She notices herself raising her voice, and tries to adjust it, thinking of their daughter sleeping a closed door away. Leah can’t wake up to this - Amy might never forgive herself if it happened, and she knows for certain Jake wouldn’t. 

“More likely isn’t a guarantee.”

“What’s the point you’re trying to make here, Peralta?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, letting go of the dish-brush and pot and giving her a tired look. “IVF is such a process. It’s a huge deal.”

“So exactly like having a kid, then.”

“It’s more than that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Jake puts his elbows on the counter, running his hands through his hair with a sigh. 

“Just… if we’re going to go through a whole medical process to put another human on this world when we’ve already done it once, I feel like you have to be so confident you want to? You can’t have a single doubt. I watched Charles and Genevieve try to do it before they adopted Nikolaj, you remember?” She nods. “It always seemed so freaking tough to me. Like, if you’re going to do that, you have to be willing to give it your _everything_.”

“And you’re not?”

“I… I don’t know, Ames. I’m sorry.”

He’s throwing unexpected, verbal bricks at her. She’s never known how to react when his opinions oppose what she believed they would be, she gets defensive by instinct, and he won’t ever let her forget the time she turned to an honest modified Lincoln-Douglas debate. They both know they can’t do that now - with time and experience, casual and loving conversations have grown a much-preferred method for dealing with opposing opinions - although Amy can’t deny her current temptation to rig up two debate stands in their living room. 

It feels like an ironic repeat of the fight they had back then, yet it’s new. It’s common and uncommon ground all at once, history and present day. 

She’s started picking at the skin of her right thumb again, scraping at it with her index finger. Jake’s watching her with worried eyes, but he doesn’t stop her.

“Are you saying you don’t want to have a second child?” It’s a poisonous question, she knows, but asks it anyway.

“I don’t mean it like that,” he mumbles, and his feigned nonchalance provokes her. 

“Then what the _fuck_,” she says, putting emphasis on the expletive, “do you mean?”

“I mean that if you came with a positive pregnancy test right here, tonight, then I’d be one hundred percent in. I’d be ready. I’d be over the freaking moon, and so excited to love another baby the way I already know I can love one.”

“So what you’re saying is if I could simply get pregnant, you’d be up for it,” she sneers, scorching frustration flooding her as she interprets his poorly articulated sentiment. “Cool. Well, newsflash, it’s what I wish, too! But clearly, I can’t.”

“That’s not what I’m saying -” Jake groans. His cheeks are flushed scarlet as he fights to find his words, but she can’t bring herself to feel an ounce of sympathy for him. “I just don’t know how to feel about us having to pay a bunch of money, do an advanced medical treatment and be stressed out thanks to it, if there’s still a risk it won’t work. It feels wrong to me, Ames. I would love another baby so much, but I don’t know how to justify prioritizing it over Leah, or us, or focusing on the family we already _are_.”

There’s a rational part of her head somewhere telling her to calm down, not to put words in his mouth like a self-fulfilling prophecy, but that rational part is getting increasingly quiet for each sentence they exchange. She finds herself glaring at him instead, the man she loves most who _can’t seem to understand her sometimes_, can’t seem to understand how much this is breaking her or how she can’t give up this dream without ensuring they’ve tried it all. 

Something breaks when he mentions Leah. The implication, the mere _suggestion_ this would be more important than the child she’d go through hell and back to keep safe and happy, is like a seething spear piercing through her, ripping a tear in a shield she thought was impenetrable. It sets off something instinctive, more than defensive, something that’s been part of her since the first time she felt her daughter move inside her.

“Are you trying to say I love my daughter less because I want another baby?” She spits out the words.

“No! Oh my god, _no_, I swear I’m not.” Jake looks shaken, blinking a few times like he’s not sure what’s happening. “All I want is for you to be okay, and this is clearly stressing you out like crazy, I don’t want it to get worse.”

“Yeah, I wonder why that is. It’s not like my reproductive system is trying to shut down several years in advance, or something. Who’d ever be stressed about that?”

“_Ames_.”

“I don’t want to hear it. I really, really, don’t want to hear it.”

She knows it’s a bad idea. The right choice would probably be to stay right here and have a calm and collected conversation to work out their respective issues with the decision they’re facing, but instead, the instinct that she needs to get away overpowers her rational thinking. She stands up without pushing in the chair, quickly grabbing her phone and keys, and before Jake has time to ask what she’s doing, she declares it. 

“I’m leaving.”

“What?”

“I need to be alone for a moment. Don’t follow me. Please.”

“Wait, what the hell?” He scrunches his forehead. “Obviously I can’t. Will you be back?”

She sighs. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

“_Tomorrow? _Amy… don’t do anything stupid!”

It may be an insignificant detail in the sea of irrational actions she’s taking, but at least, Amy feels a sense of pride that she doesn’t slam the door on her way out.

-

Even in their Brooklyn neighborhood, she expected fewer people to be out at this time - it’s late, or so she thinks. A quick glance at her wristwatch tells her it’s not even nine p.m. yet. It felt like she spent years inside their apartment, dealing and worrying and last but not least fighting with the one person she most hates fighting with, but for the outside world, it's a normal Wednesday evening. She's jealous of them.

She walks slowly - too slowly to be in Brooklyn - and stops when she reaches the small park near their house. There are no kids left here at this time, only a group of teenagers hanging out over on the swings and smoking. Amy sits down on a bench a safe distance away from them, thinking that right now, it's a shame she stopped smoking. She could have needed a cigarette, but even the nicotine patches are but a memory after she quit cold turkey during her first pregnancy.

She puts her head in her hands instead, inhaling and exhaling in and out in an imagined square until her breathing stabilizes.

She shouldn't have left, she knows. It's an unfair and immature decision beneath her usual professional ways, cold-hearted and mean towards Jake and even towards Leah, but she couldn't imagine staying and pretending what he was saying didn't affect her. Somewhere deep inside, she understands his skepticism, but she's not sure _he _understands her desperation or the helpless feeling of knowing her body is working against her. That helplessness overpowers all her hesitation. She's never been one to give up on dreams easily, and definitely not before giving her everything and exhausting every last option. Jake knows that about her. He should understand.

She picks up her phone, surprised when the only text she sees is a single _I'm sorry_. She ignores it, going into her contacts instead and calling another one of her most used numbers.

Rosa picks up on the second signal. 

“Amy?”

“Hey, Rosa.” She tries to keep a normal tone, but her voice ends up wavering anyway. 

“What’s happening?”

“Can I come over? Watch a Nancy Meyers-movie and drink tequila?” It’s their years-old routine, established during the god-awful six months they both had their partners in witness protection and each other as trusted confidantes. It’s been a long time since they last arranged one, but if she’s ever needed one since, it’s tonight.

There’s the sound of someone moving at the other end of the phone, a mumbled apology before the background noise disappears. “Why?”

“Jake and I had a fight,” she mumbles, wondering why things feel so much more real once you say them out loud.

“Okay.”

“I left.”

“Uh-huh. _Wait_,” Rosa stops her, suddenly halting. “You _left_? Like, straight-up walked out? What the hell? Did he do something?”

“No, no - oh my god, Rosa, it’s _Jake_.”

“Then why’d you leave?” 

“We disagreed on a thing.” Rosa hums, urging her to continue. “I don’t think he sees my perspective. Or understands it.”

“Santiago,” Rosa sighs, and Amy can tell there’s serious advice coming. “Look, I’m not going to tell you how to solve your fights, but - this is you and Jake. Sure, you don't always agree on everything, but that man loves you so much it’s nauseating, okay?”

“I guess. I mean, I know.” 

“Like, you two have a freaking toddler, which should be the death of all romance, and somehow you’re still sickening.” Rosa says the last words with a bit of a groan. “If I were you, I’d go home and try to explain my point. Calmly.”

Amy snorts. “Since when have you encouraged people to solve a fight calmly? I thought insults or threats were your style.”

“I said if I were you, not me. Amy, just hear him out. Have a proper conversation with him, and explain your side of… whatever you guys are fighting about. If you’re still mad after, you can come over.” 

“Okay,” she whispers, secretly relieved someone else made the decision for her. “Thanks, Rosa.”

“Anytime,” her friend replies, and then grunts. “No, nevermind, not anytime. I’m not your relationship coach. But sure, you’re welcome, I guess.” She makes another noise of discomfort. “Text me an update.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Rosa hangs up on her, and Amy balances her phone in her hand. There are no more texts. Jake’s giving her time, she guesses, letting her cool off like he’s learned to do the few times in their relationship when squabbles and bickering have turned to actual disputes. 

She’s barely been outside for twenty minutes, but the bad conscience is kicking in hard, especially after Rosa’s advice. She needs to explain her side in a calm and collected manner, and they need to decide how to move forward, together. As much as she wants to take full control of the situation and put her body through whatever it takes, as desperate as she is to know they're _doing something_, it's a decision she can't make alone - because she isn’t alone.

She may be frustrated and disappointed and a little bit scared, but she's not alone.

She texts him she’ll be back in 10 before she starts walking. When he doesn't reply, she walks faster. 

-

The first thing she notes upon returning is the episode of _Doctor McStuffins _playing on their television. She could recognize those melodies and the exaggerated upbeat enthusiasm of all characters’ voices anywhere, and for a fleeting moment, she wonders why Jake would be watching the hysterical children's show on his own before she realises he's half-laying on the couch with a seemingly asleep Leah in his arms. Their daughter is wrapped in her duvet like a burrito, her face slightly red like she’s been crying, and Amy’s bad conscience gets impossibly worse.

“You came back,” Jake notes, and she can read the relief on his face. 

“Yeah. I texted you.”

“My phone is in the kitchen,” he explains, pointing to Leah. “This one woke up five minutes after you left. Screaming and crying like crazy and could barely talk. Nightmare, I think? Anyway, it was heartbreaking.”

“Oh, baby.” Amy sits down next to them, stroking Leah's back through the duvet. “I'm sorry I wasn't there.”

“It’s fine, she didn't notice.”

“I meant I'm sorry I left.”

He looks away. “It's okay.”

“It isn’t,” she assures him, and he gives her a small shrug. “I should have stayed and explained it better.”

“Well, yeah.” He looks back at her with a careful smile. “But I’m sorry, too. I know it’s not the same for me.”

“It’s not your body it’s happening to.”

“No. No, it’s not.”

Leah whimpers in her sleep, and Amy scoots closer on instinct, kissing the top of her daughter’s head. The child makes a new, softer, noise at that, leaning towards her.

“Do you want to hold her?” Jake whispers, and she nods. “I haven’t moved my legs in _forever_ \- thanks.”

Their daughter blinks a few times as he lifts her to Amy’s lap instead, opening her eyes for a second, but then she closes them again and rests her head on Amy’s chest. 

Amy finds herself guilty of doing the same thing she used to find other parents weird for raving about, burying her nose in Leah’s newly washed hair and sniffing the top of her head, but it stands true - nothing smells better than your own baby, not even when they’re old enough to be walking and talking. These kinds of snuggles aren’t a daily occurrence anymore, and she fears the day they’ll be non-existent. She knows how precious the time with a newborn is, and although she’s itching with excitement for every experience to come, she can’t make herself accept the thought of those days being gone forever. Not yet.

Jake’s hand is playing with Leah’s hair, twirling the subtle curls around his fingers and softly massaging her neck. They’re both so focused on their daughter, Amy’s taken aback when he asks her a question.

“Are you totally, totally sure you want to do IVF?”

“Yeah,” she admits, not a moment’s hesitation. “I know it’s tough, but… I want this so bad. I need to feel like I have some form of control over the situation - I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try everything.”

Jake nods slowly, moving one hand to intertwine with hers, and she thinks she can feel the tension between them fade with his touch. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. If you’re willing to go through that, if you think it’s worth it for _you_, we’ll do it.”

Part of the weight is lifted off of her shoulders like a block of granite, but a few doubts linger.

“I thought you weren’t sure if you wanted another kid,” she remarks, thinking of his comments of _I don’t know how to justify prioritizing that_, but he shakes his head.

“I’d have all the kids if they’re yours.” He presses a kiss to the nape of Leah’s neck. “It’s not about that. I would love another kid so, so much.”

“So what is it about?”

Jake grimaces. “I’m scared of the process, Ames. I heard _way too much _about it when Charles and Genevieve were trying, and it took up their whole life and relationship for so long. I love our life as it is. I’m… scared it’d break us, I guess.”

“I know. But I think if I always wanted another kid, if I knew we could have done more and we didn’t _try _\- that would break us, too. It would break me, at least.”

He nods again, squeezing her hand tight and lifting it, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “We’ll make sure it doesn't happen, then.”

She smiles wide, and without a word, Jake snuggles into her side when she moves to make space, head resting on her shoulder and legs crossed over hers. The three of them are a warm, intimate family cocoon, and Amy thinks that if there’s anything better than watching Jake trace faint circles with his fingers on Leah's upper back, making the child smile in her sleep, it's that he manages to press soft kisses to her own neck at the same time. She has half a mind to compliment him on the multi-tasking, but she's too relaxed to speak.

The kisses stop when he asks her another question, and her eyes reluctantly flutter open.

“Are you sure we can afford it, though?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not optimal.” She thinks of her beating heart when she wrote down the numbers, trying to work out how much their insurance could cover.”But we can afford a couple attempts before reevaluating.”

“We’ll get it in the first.”

“Maybe,” she mumbles, hesitant. “You forget this stupid body wants to shut down now. Or, well, its reproductive system.”

He looks up at her with a pained expression, shaking his head. “Please stop talking about it like that.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to _me_,” he says, and part of her knows he’s right, she shouldn’t be talking about it that way, but another part feels too betrayed by her body to care, so she shrugs. “I’m sorry I made it sound like you would prioritize this over Leah, by the way. Not fair.”

“No, it wasn’t. You know it’s not about that.”

“I do. I’m sorry.” 

Amy nods, squeezing his hand. She can feel her eyelids getting heavier, the day’s exhaustion returning at full force, and she lets out a wide yawn. It's been a long day, to say the least, and all she wants is to close her eyes and go to sleep in this safe haven with her daughter snuggling on her chest and her husband resting his head on her shoulder. The two of them together are a million times better than any heated or weighted blanket, and having them both there is making her anxiety finally, finally ease up for a while.

“I’m coming with you to the next appointment, so you know. And all the other ones.” Jake’s voice is a warm whisper close to her ear when he speaks again, and she hums her understanding.

“You don't have to come to everything.”

“I'll be trying to,” he assures her. “I’m sorry for being so questioning about it. I just hate seeing you suffer, and this whole thing has already been getting you so down. I guess I'm scared IVF would make that worse if it didn't work out.”

“It might,” she admits. “But I don’t want to keep going like this, either. It’s too frustrating. I need to feel like I’m actively _doing_ something, especially now.”

“I know. Like I said, I’m sorry I was so skeptical.”

“I’m sorry I walked out.”

“I love you.”

She cranes her head to kiss his forehead. “I love you, too.”

Leah whimpers again and stirs in Amy’s arms, regaining her parents’ full attention only to return to her previous relaxed state a short moment later.

“Should we keep her in our bed tonight? In case she has another nightmare.” Amy’s suggestion is mostly out of concern for her daughter, but a little bit out of her own unwillingness for the treasured cuddles to come to an end.

“One condition,” Jake grins. “When we have another baby, we’re getting a _huge _bed.”

For the first time that day, she laughs. “Deal.”

~ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … yeah.  
sorry, not sorry, about this one, guys! this one was a challenge to write, but i enjoyed it and i'm very proud of it.
> 
> a few more disclaimers; it's actually very unlikely that amy would receive these kind of news over the phone. that doesn't really happen, but i couldn't be bothered to write another doctors visit and i wanted her loneliness in that situation to build up to the aftermath, so - i’m going with creative freedom on this one.
> 
> i’ve stolen a little bit of inspiration and information from kenza zouiten’s videos, the rest is based on my own research and a little bit of imagination.
> 
> i would like to thank siân for her unwavering support - i'm sorry there's no craig in this chapter. i hope you forgive me. you’re the hat to my craig ❤️
> 
> i would also like to thank z/fezzle for beta-ing this and being so willing to help out with my overly complicated queries; why is US healthcare and insurance so damn complicated??? anyways - you're awesome, thank you so much for all your help!!
> 
> thank you also to everyone who reads! y'all are amazing and your kudos and comments make my day. if you want to leave some thoughts - favorite parts, quotes, your reactions, what made you laugh/cry/scream, your favorite leah quirks (all of them, i know. me too), or whatever else you feel like sharing;; please feel free and know that you are making my day ❤️❤️
> 
> chapter four is.. also a lot. and i have yet to write it. but i will. hold on!


	4. i'll crawl with you on hands and knees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A medical process begins, bringing with it a rollercoaster of emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi folks!!! i’m going to stop apologising for how long these chapters take. they just do. life and mental health and this story being a tough one and all that. thank you for being patient! either way, i really hope you will enjoy chapter four. it’s very emotional.
> 
> the first part of this chapter has mentions of needles, because, well, IVF. i’ve tried my best to not be too graphic, but if it’s something you’re triggered by, please take caution and feel free to skim if that’s easiest. if you want to skip past the medication process, skip to the night before the egg retrieval or the part where they’re first talking in the car and amy’s glaring at a coffee mug. i still wanted to include the injections for realism and accuracy but i respect it if you need to skip. 
> 
> this chapter is probably the most medical one and i did A LOT of research for it. still, i am no expert in the field, and the main purpose of this fic isn’t to be a perfect description of what doing IVF is like. you can google that. this is about the EMOTIONS. that said, i’ve done SO MUCH research anyway so, most of it should be realistic lol. 
> 
> that’s a lot of talking. i hope you enjoy this chapter! it’s.. a lot, safe to say.

**may**

“If this had been a crime scene,” Jake says, looking at the medication vials lined up on their meticulously cleaned kitchen table, “my first impression would be that the people in this home are drug dealers.”

“And if you’d been a better detective,” Amy counters, “you’d have done a quick search of the names to find out they’re _fertility_ drugs.” 

“Hey! I’m a great detective!” 

She points to the engagement ring on her finger and then to herself. “But I’m the best detective. No take-backs.” 

“If I’d known you’d be using my proposal speech against me six years later, I _would_ have written it down first.”

She laughs, shaking her head and unfolding the instruction paper from their doctors to reread the information for the fifteenth time. If Amy had to do a theoretical exam tomorrow on how to administer these injections, she’d get a solid A+, but, gathering the actual courage to do it isn't something you can study for. She's feeling increasingly shaky at the thought.

It's been over a month since they made their decision. Getting insurance papers in order takes time, as does binder-making, as does confirming each micro-decision with the clinic. For an entire month, Amy's been itching with anticipation and nerves, and she’s both bursting with excitement and sighing with relief over feeling in control for the first time in seven months, but she’s also being struck by the realization of what she’s about to do. As many borderline-insane experiences as she’s lived through, she’s never done this before, and she’s clueless what to expect.

She reads through the instructions yet another time before she starts. 

Jake doesn't look much more stable. He's eyeing her carefully, biting his lip as she prepares the injection, measures up the medication and twists the needle on with minute, precise movements. 

“You look like a professional,” he comments on her focused expression, and she makes a doubtful grimace. “Are you sure you haven't done this before?”

“Shot hormones into my stomach? It’s a first.”

“Are you nervous?” It could have been a teasing question, a reason to make fun of her, but when she meets his eyes she sees only concern. It peels away the tough facade - which she was barely grappling onto as it was - instantaneously.

“I'm really nervous,” she says, feeling her heart thundering in her chest like it’s about to break through her skin, and he nods.

“Me too.”

“Do you think you could give me the shot?”

Jake blinks. “You want _me _to do it? I… are you sure, Ames?”

“Please?” She gives him a pleading look as he looks from the syringe to her and back again, twisting his hands in his lap. “At least the first time, before I know what it feels like?”

_And we said we’d do this together_, she opens her mouth as if to add, but the words feel superfluous. They’re a given, and from the way he reaches out his hand to gently hold hers, stroking his thumb over her wrist as he nods, she knows that he knows, too. 

She folds the hem of her tank top to sit underneath her chest and grabs an alcohol wipe before there’s time for either of them to change their mind. 

“I don’t like this,” Jake confesses as she gives him the syringe, quickly instructing him on the procedure another time. “It feels like I’m hurting you. ”

“You’re not.” She closes her eyes, grabbing the disinfected skin with both hands. “Just inject me.”

“Title of your sextape?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Fair,” he says, and then she feels the quick pinch. 

The injection burns. It’s better than she feared, but far from pleasant, and she tenses for the few everlasting seconds it takes before it's over and Jake presses a bit of gauze to the area.

“Wow,” he laughs, drawing a relieved breath when she opens her eyes again. “I can't believe I did that. I am _so_ brave.”

She glares at him. “_Excuse_ _me_?”

“Kidding, kidding.” He chuckles again before wrapping her in a tight hug. “You did great, babe.”

She can feel the liquid stinging beneath her skin. Despite the discomfort, Amy already prefers this over the frustration of the last seven months - at least it means they’re actively doing something. The physical pain is a drop in the ocean compared to the mental agony of endless disappointments she's gone through, and she’d choose it above the latter in a heartbeat. 

_Maybe_, she lets herself think, a timid but golden glimmer of hope shining through the grey clouds of hesitance. _Maybe this could actually work_.

Jake kisses her cheek before his head moves lower. Just as she's about to ask what he thinks he's doing, she feels his lips brush against her skin, once, twice, a few inches from the injection place. 

“Better?” He asks, and she manages a weak smile. 

“Much.” 

\- 

The second shot is easier than the first one, the third easier than the second. By the fourth night, she's gathered enough confidence to do the procedure all on her own when Jake has to stay late at work, and by the fifth night, she no longer winces at the stinging sensation. 

_It's absurd_, she thinks as the burning slowly fades, _the things you get used to_. 

She plans their schedule around level checks at the clinic, taking blood tests and doing ultrasounds while Leah happily lays a puzzle on the floor of the examination room. A nurse compliments the toddler’s skill and Leah shines up like the sun itself, and after Amy’s told her body’s reacting perfectly to the stimulating hormones, they both leave the clinic grinning. She’s in such a good mood, she can’t even bring herself to say no when her daughter points to the frozen yogurt place across the store and looks at Amy with the pleading puppy-eyes that are so hard to resist. She’s not too proud about breaking their rule of ice cream being a weekend treat, but she has to admit that watching Leah shine with pride as she makes varyingly successful attempts of feeding herself without spilling is both an awesome celebration and happiness boost. 

Even without the level checks, she would have been able to tell the injections are taking. She’s sore, her head wrecks, and she feels bloated enough to consider changing into yoga pants several times a day. She’s exhausted in a way she hasn’t been since she had a newborn, nearly falling asleep at her desk in the afternoons and being nudged awake by a worried beat cop, and it takes every ounce of her willpower not to start crying herself when Leah has her third breakdown for the day over the disappearance of a puzzle piece. On day eight of injections, Amy falls asleep on the couch before it’s time to take them, and when Jake wakes her up there’s a part of her wishing he hadn’t. 

“We could still change our minds and get a cat instead,” he suggests in a half-hearted attempt at a joke as she mumbles a curse when she feels the stinging. “_Way_ fewer needles, just saying.”

“Please don’t tempt me right now,” she mutters. He laughs nervously before repeating the same action he’s taken to each time they do this together, leaning down and placing a feather-light kiss right above the injection area.

It’s transient, but for a second, she allows herself to think there’s a certain beauty to this process, too. 

-

The night before their egg retrieval, she scratches that thought. 

It’s the first evening in twelve days she’s not taking any injections. It should be a relief, a long-awaited and much well-deserved break after the previous night’s final trigger shot, but she’s too nervous about the next day to enjoy it. Jake’s working late - something about a time-sensitive lead he promised would be handled in a couple of hours - and Leah falls asleep with her head on Amy’s shoulder somewhere around their fourth reread of _Guess How Much I Love You_, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She brews a cup of green tea and goes to change into pajamas before sinking down on the couch to watch _Jeopardy!_, and she’s doing okay until she catches a proper glimpse of her body in the wardrobe’s full-length mirror and breaks down.

The bloated feeling isn’t just in her head. She’s swollen, looking three months pregnant for the wrong reasons, and it's painful on so many levels. She thinks it would have been fine if it’d been the sole notable difference, because a bit of temporary weight-gain rarely bothers her, but it’s not the worst thing. What makes her do a double-take is the bruises scattered across her lower abdomen, an uneven pattern of dark violet, red and yellow marks after the needles. The reflection in the mirror looks like it’s been beaten up, literally punched in the stomach with a knuckle-duster, and Amy feels as if she’s entirely separate from the person she sees.

This isn’t _her_.

This isn’t what she’s supposed to look like. 

This isn’t how it was supposed to be. 

She doesn’t feel brave or beautiful, doesn’t recognize even a shadow of a stubborn fighter in the reflection staring back at her. The only thing she sees is sheer exhaustion, a person tired of fighting for control over the uncontrollable, and it’s a haunting image nowhere close to how she’s used to seeing herself. She throws on an oversized NYPD sweatshirt and closes the wardrobe door in a swift moment before she can stare any longer, but it’s too late - the sight is etched on her memory, and the silent tears take several minutes to stop falling.

There’s no beauty in this process. If there was, surely she wouldn’t be feeling this way. 

-

Amy doesn’t get much sleep that night. She’s tossing and turning, lying awake and staring at the ceiling between short bits of light slumber. When her alarm finally sounds, she feels less rested than before she went to bed. On top of that, she can't have coffee because of the anesthesia, and has to be satisfied with casting longing looks at Jake's takeaway Starbucks cup. She swears the paper mug is ogling her by the time they reach the clinic’s parking lot. 

“Ames, I’m sure onesip won't matter if the alternative is you staring at it like a psychopath.”

“It's not a clear liquid. I'm not risking it.”

“Fine. But if you murder me for this, I _will_ tell people I gave you the offer.” She snorts, the corners of her mouth twitching, and there's a look of pride on Jake's face when he realizes he’s made her smile. “How are you feeling? Aside from the coffee-abstinence?”

“Tired. Disappointed.”

“Ah, yes, something gave that away.”

“Not because of the coffee,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I mean of this whole thing. It's not at all what I was picturing when I suggested we’d have another baby.”

Jake doesn't reply immediately, twisting the cup’s plastic lid back and forth while he stares out the window, watching another couple enter the building with hands intertwined. 

“I know it wasn't, babe.”

“I'm sorry I suggested fertility treatments,” she mumbles, and he looks at her with a curious countenance. “I bet it's not even going to work.”

“Hey, you don't know that yet.” He places a hand on her thigh, getting a bit of coffee foam on her jeans. “We’ve gotten this far, right? Shame to give up hope now.”

“The eggs could be bad quality. They might not fertilize, they might not implant. Somany things could still go wrong.”

“_Sheesh_. Ever the optimist, aren’t you?” She glares at him, but he’s unbothered by her bitterness, a confident smile on his lips as he finishes the last of his coffee. “If you bet it's not going to work, I'll bet it will. Mind you, I have a history of winning most of our bets.”

“You do not.”

“Agree to disagree,” he laughs, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear and stroking her cheek. “Let’s just do it and see what happens, okay? You wanted to give this a try, we’re giving it a try.”

“You have to hold my hand.”

“I’ll hold your hand.”

“We’re going for coffee as soon as they release me.”

“I thought we were trying to save money?”

“We are _going_ for _coffee_.”

“Okay, so non-negotiable. Cool.”

It might be the cup of coffee she finally gets to consume when they stop by Starbucks on the way, or that she’s feeling less like a hormone-inflated alien after the procedure, but Amy’s mood is much improved by the time they’re back home. For a few days, it’s all out of her hands. She can’t do anything but hold onto the thought of six eggs, less than ideal but more than the zero she feared, about to be fertilized and left to grow in perfect lab conditions for at least five to six days. On the one hand, she’s powerless, but on the other hand, it’s outside her realm of control, literally taking place outside of her body. In a certain sense, it's relieving.

She’s dizzy after the anesthesia. She claims she’s fine, because dizziness is nothing compared to the pain and crushing anxiety she felt before, but she stumbles over their doorstep and nearly loses her balance, so Jake takes a careful grip of both her shoulders as he leads her to their bed and helps her lay down.

“You should take a nap,” he whispers, stroking her hair as she gives him a faint smile.

“I’m not that tired.”

“I have to pick up our two-year-old from daycare in two hours.”

“On second thought I will be taking that nap.”

They end up taking it together. Jake’s arm is wrapped around her waist, their heads are resting so close together that the tips of their noses touch, and when she wakes up a punctual thirty minutes later, she wonders if it’s the first romantic thing they’ve gotten up to this month where needles haven’t been involved.

“If I get pregnant,” she whispers in his ear, daring to pronounce the word for the first time in weeks, “I promise you we’ll take an honest-to-god babymoon or something. Just the two of us on a beach somewhere.”

He responds with a loud snore, and it takes more of Amy’s self-control than it should not to laugh at him.

She must have both fallen asleep again and slept through Jake disentangling himself from her, because the next time she regains conscience, it’s to the feeling of her favorite three-feet-tall human climbing on top of her back while giggling uncontrollably.

“_Carefully_, bumblebee, I said carefully,” she hears Jake’s exasperated voice, and then a high-pitched complaint from her daughter as he lifts her off of Amy. “Most people like it when you wake them up more calmly.”

“It’s okay,” Amy says, sensing without opening her eyes that Leah's close to bursting out into tears. “Do you want to snuggle with me for a bit, Lee? You're invited too, Jake.”

“Oh, _yeah_, Lee, what do you think?”

“Go to the park,” the toddler insists, shaking her head. “Swinging!”

“If you cuddle with us in bed for two minutes, I will take you to the park after.”

“Swinging,” Leah repeats grumpily.

“But first cuddling?” Jake tries.

“_Swinging_!” Her expression softens, lower lip pouting and eyes widening like she's learned to do so masterfully. “Please?”

She can't yet pronounce the word correctly, so it comes out more like a _pleath_, but it's the cutest thing in the world and has both parents exchanging meaning looks, knowing they've already lost.

It must be Leah's lucky day, because there's a toddler swing free already when they get to the park. Amy thinks it must be her lucky day as well, because there's also a bench free with a perfect view of the swingset, meaning she can watch Jake and Leah play while she soaks up the afternoon sun. The toddler is squealing with joy, her excitement getting louder with each push of the swing. Jake’s asking her if she wants to go higher, urging her to hold on tight while he pushes the swing slightly higher than Amy would prefer, but Leah’s thrilled and Jake is beaming as he watches their daughter have the time of her life. 

Amy doubts she’ll ever tire of watching the two of them interact. Part of her always knew he’d make an amazing father - despite his own doubts, she’s never wavered. Still, she could never have imagined just how present, loving and dedicated of a parent he would become, and she feels blessed to get to see it in action day after day. Although she wishes she was hanging out in the shadow and pushing a sleeping baby in a stroller, or feeling them move around inside her, she has this. She’ll always have this. Nothing can take the family she already has away from her, and as difficult as it is to feel grateful for anything after nearly two weeks’ worth of needles, she's indescribably thankful for them.

“Monkey!” Leah exclaims, pointing at a squirrel rushing between trees while Amy tries to feed her small pieces of dried fruit-bar. They’re taking a snack break to replenish their energy, but the toddler is distracted to say the least.

“That’s a squirrel, baby.”

“Monkey,” Leah repeats, pointing to another squirrel. 

“Still a squirrel. Monkeys are bigger.”

“Also much less commonly found in New York,” Jake adds. “Presumably. I’ve never been sure about Hitchcock.”

“_Monkeys_!”

“Ames, did we ever teach her animals?”

“We must have. I _distinctly_ remember reading those god-awful books about animals at the zoo over and over for three months.”

“Oh, _right_!” Jake lights up. “How could I ever forget your incredible dolphin voice? Truly haunting. You turned her against SeaWorld from the start, babe.”

“Shut up, your gorilla voice wasn’t much better.” 

“Monkeys,” Leah repeats in a serious tone as if to remind them of the matter at hand, and then she’s almost up and chasing after another squirrel before Amy catches her and tickles her. She falls back against the picnic blanket, squirming to get away while she keeps laughing her infectious toddler laugh, and Amy’s trying hard to keep a poker-face but she’s overtired and relieved and so absolutely _happy, _it’s worthless. It’s mere seconds before all three of them are laughing uncontrollably, and for a moment, every bit of heartache she’s felt over the last days is cured.

\- 

The day before the transfer, they have to go in for a meeting to decide how many embryos to transfer. It’s an interesting discussion, with Amy and their doctor arguing in favor of one and Jake hung up on the idea that an increased chance of twins would be the _coolest thing ever_ and they should do two, but they eventually end up making the decision to transfer one and freeze the remaining two embryos. 

“Chicken,” Jake tells her when they’re leaving the clinic. “Two for the price of one, right?”

“You try being pregnant with _one_ child before deciding you want to try two.”

“Fine,” he laughs. “So you think it’s going to stick, huh?”

Amy blushes. “Maybe? She did say they were high-quality.”

“I'm sure she'll give you a gold star if you ask.”

“Ha-_ha_.”

“Keep up the optimism,” he says, and the wide grin he gives her makes her want to follow his advice. “You know, in two weeks you might be pregnant.”

Hearing the words makes her heart flutter with joy, making her halt suddenly to wrap her arms around him, kissing him so hard it takes him by surprise. His hands wave, hesitating before they find their spot on her waist, but then he’s as wrapped up in it as she is. She cups his chin with one hand, stroking her thumb over the light stubble and pouring all of her cautious hope into this kiss, soaking him up, taking him in. The moment is short-lived, but it’s enough to bring out the spark she hopes they’ll never lose. 

“What was that for?” He asks when she pulls away.

“Luck,” she smiles. 

-

It feels like a monumental day when they pull into the parking lot the next morning. Amy supposes if everything goes well, it will be, and then she reflects upon how in that case, she'll always know the exact date and hour for when something could have started to grow. 

Her first pregnancy had been such a shock in the beginning; not unplanned, but happening way faster than she’d anticipated. Amy wonders if she glorified the welcome surprise in her memories, romanticizing the feeling that this little person had, in a sense, chosen them. If their first round of IVF works, it's going to be a result of medicines and treatments and them being so proactive about _wanting this_, and although she places no value in the discrepancy, it feels clearly dissimilar. Equally as beautiful, but in an entirely different way.

She clings to the beautiful parts. The long hug Jake gives her before they go in because he can tell she's shaking, and how nice and considerate everyone who introduces themselves to them is. She focuses on Jake's hand squeezing hers throughout the short procedure, and on getting to see the quick flash happen on the ultrasound screen. The giddiness between them as they drive home after, the way he insists on tucking her into bed for her advised day of bed rest, and the buffet of snacks he runs and gets them. 

Most of all, she clings to the monochrome printed picture of the embryo, looking like nothing but a tiny bubble against some light background but giving her hope all the same. 

_Please_, she thinks before they turn out the light that evening, clutching the thin paper over her heart.

_Please, please, stick. _

~

**june**

If Amy found the days between egg retrieval and transfer were nerve-wracking, the ten days between her transfer and blood test prove to be yet more agonizing. She tries her best to stay distracted, letting the days pass by in a flurry of work shifts, toddler meltdowns and even a visit to Shaw’s Bar for a sense of normalcy on a night when Karen is babysitting. Charles gives her bottle of non-alcoholic beer meaning looks throughout the whole night, and she mumbles something about her low alcohol tolerance to which he just nods, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. She tries to ignore the persistent thought in the back of her head, reminding her his suspicions could technically be correct. 

_Hope is a dangerous thing_, Amy thinks as she goes through the first pages of the diary she kept during her first pregnancy, desperately trying to remember what early signs she felt the first time. _Hope makes you crazy_. Hope is what’s making her overanalyze her every sensation and shift in mood until she barely trusts herself anymore. Is she experiencing the first hints of first-trimester fatigue, or has Leah just woken up at four-thirty a.m. for the last three mornings? Is she nauseous, or did she simply drink coffee on an empty stomach and forget to eat until early afternoon? Is her sense of smell heightened, or did Charles bring an extra eye-watering lunch today? The question marks are endless, and they make the ten days until her blood test feel eternal.

The day before the test, Leah and the rest of the kids in her daycare group put on a little show for the parents. It’s the sort of thing Amy always suspected parents lied about or greatly exaggerated, but it turns out watching her daughter proudly march in uneven circles while happily singing along to songs about numbers and letters all while waving to her parents is more than enough to ensure there are tears of pride in Amy’s eyes throughout the performance.

“You’re not going to stop crying, are you?” Jake teases her as they’re pulling out of the parking lot, Leah still singing a song about cows.

“I’m emotional,” she laughs through the tears, and she can tell from the way his eyes narrow that he’s thinking it, too - _even more than usual._

\- 

The following night, Amy jolts awake at 3 a.m.

She tries to fall asleep again for a good thirty minutes, tossing and turning and snuggling closer to Jake to make herself calm down, but nothing works and she's as awake as if she’d just chugged a thermos of black coffee. She solves a crossword puzzle on the Times app on her phone, hoping for it to either distract her or tire her out, but it manages neither. She is physically unable to relax. There’s no way for her to stop thinking about how _today’s the day_, today’s the day they’ll find out whether or not the money, time and bruises led to somewhere, if they’ll be adding another member to their family in nine months, whether or not she’s finally pregnant. 

There are five hours left until her scheduled appointment. It’s not a long time, not when Leah will be up in three hours, but it feels like forever. She wants to know _now_, and she’s not going to fall asleep again before she does.

_One_ at-home test can’t hurt, she decides.

Grabbing her phone and a sweater Jake must have thrown on the floor yesterday, she crawls out of bed and pads into their modestly sized bathroom, praying there’s an unused test left somewhere.

It takes her a couple of minutes to find one. The package is stashed deep in their cupboard behind bottles of shampoo, its hiddenness former evidence of a moment’s weakness when she must have been unable to even see it. It’s been a long and frustrating eight months, but as Amy places the plastic stick down on the floor to let the result develop, washing her hands carefully before starting a timer and putting in contact lenses, she can’t help but wonder if their struggle has come to a much yearned-for end. 

A small hourglass flashes on the little digital display, and her heart is full-on racing, pounding with each appearance and disappearance of the symbol.

Then, with thirty seconds left on the three-minute timer, the result appears and she swears fireworks go off outside.

There aren’t any actual fireworks, of course. To anyone else, it’s an ordinary night in early June, but to Amy, it’s the night of a forthright miracle. It’s an _indignity_ there are no fireworks. 

The screen reads _Pregnant, 1-2 Weeks_, and she feels happy tears form in her eyes as the relief floods her, a maelstrom of emotions coming at her without warning.

_Pregnant_.

They’re having another baby.

Her hand goes instinctively to her lower abdomen, where the bruises from the injections are still fading, and something unimaginably small but _existing_, has started to grow. 

“Jake.” She shakes his shoulder as she repeats his name. “Jake. Babe.”

There's a low groan and a sigh, but he doesn't open his eyes. She shakes him carefully again.

“Jake, please wake up.”

“Hmm. No.”

“I promise you're going to want to wake up for this.”

He makes another gruff sound, somewhere between a grunt and a yawn. “S’the middle of the _night_. S’ anything wrong?”

“No, no. The opposite,” she says, and he looks at her for a second before his eyes fall shut again. 

“What d’you mean?”

She leans closer, kissing the back of his neck before she whispers the words. “Babe, I'm pregnant.”

“_What_?” He sits up straight so quickly, Amy almost flies back on the bed as she loses her balance. “Wait - how d'you know - _what_?”

She laughs, because she's barely believing it either, and hands him the minutes-old test so he can see for himself. “I couldn't sleep, so I took one to see, and… it's positive.”

“Oh my god,” he blinks, twisting the test in his hands while a wide grin takes shape on his lips, his expression morphing from sleep-deprived toddler parent to overjoyed child on Christmas morning. “Oh my _god_, Ames.”

“I know!”

“This is - we're having another baby?”

“_Yeah_! It worked!” 

“I can’t believe it.” He shakes his head, and then he wraps her in a tight hug while pressing kisses to her cheeks, her neck, her shoulder, every spot he can reach. “You did it, babe.”

“You helped.”

“Eh, barely. You were the one who took all those shots.”

“I did,” she grimaces. “They were worth it, though.”

“We’re having a baby,” he whispers, and the smile on her lips grows impossibly wider. 

“We’re having a baby.”

It’s dusky inside their bedroom, but the world has never felt brighter.

\- 

Neither of them gets more sleep that night. All they can do is lay next to each other, watch the sun rise through the window and repeat their shock and immeasurable happiness to one another.

They’re having another child, and they _are_ going to be the two-kid-family she always pictured. She _is_ going to experience the few magical parts of pregnancy and times with a newborn she couldn't accept never experiencing again, Leah _will_ have a sibling to grow up next to and possibly an automatic best friend for life. For the last few months, Amy's been scared to death it wouldn’t ever happen to them again, and now she's blessed with the knowledge it will.

She's not broken. Her body can still do this, albeit with a bit of help to get there, but it can and it is, and she feels like the luckiest woman in the world.

It's the first time she's purely confident when they park outside the fertility doctor. A quick little blood test to confirm what she already knows to be true, and she can move on with her life, _pregnant_, and put all this behind her.

“Did you take a home test?” The friendly nurse asks as she adjusts the tight band around Amy’s upper arm. Amy’s not even making an effort to hide her proud smile.

“Maybe,” she confesses, and it makes the young woman chuckle.

“Congratulations.”

The results will take a couple of hours, she's informed, and the clinic will call and leave a voicemail when her numbers are in. The screen lights up when she's in the middle of a conversation with Detective Alvarado later in the afternoon, and it takes a _lot_ more self-control than it should for Amy to not instantly reach for her phone. The last hours of her workday seem to stretch forever, and by the time she meets up with Jake in the precinct’s garage to listen to the message, she's bursting with excitement and joy.

He’s not much better, looking at her with the heart-eyes that still make her blush as she gets into the passenger seat. The happiness is infectious, so she leans over to kiss him a few seconds longer than she'd deem appropriate for technically being inside the workplace. 

“I was thinking we should celebrate with pizza tonight,” he says when they break it off. “Both because well, _pizza_, and also because I couldn’t have pizza at home for months last time you were pregnant or you’d be sick. I figure I need to take my chance while I can.”

“Planning ahead.” Amy raises an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

“Well, I’m a super-experienced dad now, right?” He leans back in the seat, crossing his arms behind his head. “I’m going to have _two_ kids! That’s grown-up for realz.” 

“As opposed to having one?”

“I’m just saying it’s next level,” he remarks and it makes her laugh. “Let's hear the voicemail, shall we?” 

She nods and reaches for his hand before pressing play on the voicemail recording.

It only takes the few seconds their nurse takes to say who she is and why she’s calling for Amy to realize something is wrong.

It’s in the worried tone, the hesitant atmosphere emanating from the speakers, and it feels like her heart has stopped dead in her chest when she hears it.

“So you’re in a bit of a gray area,” the nurse explains, pronouncing each word with great care. “Your level showed up at a 13. As you know, any hcG level above 25 is pregnant and anything below 5 is not. Anything in between needs a retest.”

Jake squeezes her hand harder, and she can sense his eyes on her as if he’s trying to read her reaction. She tries to squeeze back but finds she can’t move her fingers or turn her face, can’t do anything but stare straight ahead with her lips pursed.

“This could, of course, be nothing and your pregnancy could just be slow-starting,” the message continues, each word still being spoken as slowly. “But since we would prefer to see your levels above 50 to be certain, you’ll have to come in for a retest in two days to see if they’ve increased.” The nurse sighs. “I am so sorry about this trouble. You two take care and I’ll see you again soon.” 

There’s a click and a dial tone as the message ends, and they’re left with a silence that seems to weigh tons. 

She notices her tears first when Jake wipes them away with the pad of his thumb, his hand warm against her cheek. 

“It’s just slow-starting, babe. The test _said_ you’re pregnant.” 

“Not pregnant enough, apparently.”

“You don’t know that yet,” he says, decisively. “Our kids are stubborn as hell. It’ll be okay.”

“You really think so?”

“I do.” The hand still intertwined with hers squeezes harder again. It’s an effort, but she manages to squeeze his back. “Somehow, we always end up okay.”

She nearly makes a snarky comment about death threats and witness protection, trials and prison sentences, but stops herself. It’s not comparable, and she knows the Amy who stayed up all night working on her boyfriend’s case before crying herself to sleep in the early hours of the morning would probably have been content with never having any kids at all if it meant Jake could come back home, but times have changed since then. It doesn’t matter that she knows they’ve been through worse, because the level of pain and worry still feels unbearable when they’re in the thick of it, the letdowns and disappointments so present here and now.

“I hope so,” she whispers and lets his warm smile give her an ounce of comfort, a sliver of sparkling hope. “Can we go pick up Lee now? I just… need to think about something else, for a while.”

“Yeah, of course.” His lips brush against her forehead for a second. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“It’ll be okay, Amy.” 

She nods, undecided as to whether or not she believes him. 

\- 

She knows the next day must pass, because she wakes up two mornings later when it's time for the retest, but there aren't any memories there when she tries to think back at. It's like she's been sleepwalking for the entire day. Nothing feels real except the overwhelming worry and the voice in her head repeating _you’re worthless, a failure, your body can't even do this_.

She peels away the skin on her lips and fingertips until both are bleeding in an attempt to feel something. She doesn't remember this, either, but there are bandaids on her fingers when she wakes up the next morning and her lips are all cracked even though it's summer. 

“You know it’s not over yet,” Jake mumbles as they’re waking up and she gets stuck on the edge of the bed, unable to tear her eyes away from the embryo picture on her nightstand. 

It looks like a foggy soap bubble, she thinks, and wonders how she could pour so much hope, love and blind faith into something that might never make it past the very first steps of existence. 

She nods and abstains from telling him what she’s really thinking. 

_It feels like it is._

There’s a dull ache in her stomach as she takes the blood test. At first, she chalks it down to nerves and that all she could get down for breakfast was coffee and half of an apple, but as the pain level increases and begins imitating an all too familiar sensation, she realizes what it could be. There aren’t any tampons in her bag, so she curses her past, temporarily optimistic, self for not putting new ones there the last time she ran out, and drives to the nearest _CVS_.

When they were starting the procedure, she was worried and desperate, clinging onto the little bit of faith that came with knowing they were at least being proactive about it. After the transfer, she was cautiously optimistic, reading into each sign and even daring to feel hopeful about the outcome. Now, she’s just _numb_. She can’t think, can’t feel, can’t react to what’s happening around her if so somebody slapped her in the face. Amy has lived her life being anxiously alert to every shifting detail around her, but as she browses the CVS aisles in a coma, she’s never felt more cut off from reality.

She does note how the cashier in the checkout has a pronounced baby bump. It feels like a sick joke. 

The joke continues, because she’s just stepped out of the building when her phone vibrates with the call from the fertility doctor’s office. 

“Amy Santiago.”

“Hi, yes.” It’s a different nurse than for the previous call, Amy notes, but the serious tone is the same. “I’m calling with your results from today’s blood test.”

She bites her lip, tasting blood from the already broken skin. “They’re not good, are they?”

“Your hCG was down to an 11.”

“Oh.”

“Unfortunately, it means you’re going to lose this pregnancy.”

“Yeah. I… figured.”

“I truly am so sorry about this,” the nurse assures her. “If it’s any comfort, know this means the pregnancy wasn’t ever viable, and your body simply did what’s best and terminated it before anything ever fully implanted. You’ll possibly get a bit of a more painful period, but after, nothing should stop you from trying again as soon as you feel ready.”

“Okay.” 

“I know that might not make it feel better, but this is not uncommon, and it’s not something you could have prevented, either. Sometimes it isn’t meant to be.” 

“No, I understand,” Amy manages to get out, and the nurse hums at the other end of the phone.

“You can take as much time as you need, and then get back to us about whether you’d like to start another cycle. Does it sound okay?”

“Sure.”

“Perfect, then. Take care,” the voice advises, and two repeated_ beep_-sounds signal the end of the call. 

There aren’t any benches nearby. Thus, when Amy feels her legs give way in the next second, all she can do is slide down until she’s sitting down on the sidewalk outside the store, her back against the wall and her arms around her knees as the panic crashes over her. Her lungs feel tight, getting tighter as she gasps for air between the ugly crying that’s slipping out of her before she can control it. Although she’s cried her fair share of tears in the last few weeks, it’s been a long time since she cried like _this_, forceful and brokenin a wounded animal-type of way that earns her weird glances from the people walking past, but she resolutely shakes her head when a stranger tries to come closer. With trembling hands she manages to press the favorites button, calling Jake, and then she tries to take a deep breath and force air into her lungs while she waits for him to pick up.

“Ames?”

She can’t get out a single word before her voice breaks. Instead of a comprehensible pair of sentences comes a blubbering string of words, not one of them sounding the way they’re supposed to, and she can hear his confusion as he repeats her name in a questioning tone but she can’t explain. Her head hurts, her lungs hurt, and hearing the sudden worried edge in Jake’s voice hurts.

“Where are you? Send me your location.” She stutters a vague description. “Okay, stay where you are and I’ll be there in ten.”

It ends up only being seven minutes before he’s kneeling in front of her, still wearing his badge and all out of breath as he helps her stand up and leads her to their car without asking a single question of what she’s doing here or what’s happened. She figures he understands - or at least, has drawn the conclusion from her wrecked appearance. She makes several attempts of opening her mouth, trying to apologize for her shattered state as the traces of her eye makeup are smudging on her cheek and she’s fighting for breath, crying so hard it feels like she’s going to throw up from the mix of snot and hysteria stuck in her throat, but it's impossible to speak.

“Ames, can you try to breathe for me, please? In for three and out for three.” He’s holding both of her hands as he guides her, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over her knuckles. She manages to hold her breath for two seconds, shaking as she exhales, and he nods. “Good, you’re doing great. Try another time.”

They go on like that for several minutes. Eventually, the vigorous bawling calms into a quieter sobbing, and she nearly collapses into his arms as he strokes her hair, whispering soft _I love you_s to which she can only respond with more crying. 

“Let’s go home,” he suggests, his voice stable and solid even as everything is crumbling around them.

-

“Are you sure you don’t have to go back to work?” 

“Yeah. Rosa owed me one.”

“Did you call Holt?”

“I will.” His lips brush against her neck. “Later.” 

They're laying on the bed, Amy being the little spoon for once. The waves of intense panic have quietened down thanks to exhaustion, and she's breathing properly, in and out as Jake holds her. Rays of sunlight are shining through the curtains, alerting her to the beautiful summer’s day outside, and she wishes Jake would close them. She doesn’t want to be reminded of the outside world. It means nothing to her, anyway.

They should have been celebrating, making sure to get off work early, picking up Leah from daycare and going for celebratory ice-cream in the middle of the week. Now they’re here, her wrapped in an extra blanket because she couldn’t stop shivering, Jake playing with her hair in a fruitless attempt of making her feel better. He’s made her coffee and a sandwich, too, insisting she needed to refill her energy after the panic attack, but she hasn’t managed more than a couple of bites. The picture of the embryo she’s about to lose still sits on her nightstand, and she’s tried but she can’t stop staring at it. 

“I’m so stupid,” it slips out of her without thinking, and Jake freezes.

“You’re not stupid, Ames.”

“I really thought it was going to last,” she continues, unaffected by his protest. “I really did.”

“So did I.”

She ignores that too, finally tearing her focus away from the picture and rolling on her back so she’s looking up at the ceiling instead. “You know it barely counts as a miscarriage at this point?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s called a chemical pregnancy because it didn’t get far enough to be visible on an ultrasound. _Chemical. _Like it’s just… an error.” She snivels. “That’s what I feel like. An error.”

“You’re not an error,” he says, in a low voice like it’s hurting him to hear her say it. “We’ll try again.”

“How many times, Jake? How many _damn_ times do we have to try again?”

“We said two before we reevaluate - “

“I know what we said,” she cuts him off. “But I’m exhausted.”

“We could take a break?”

“No, we’re trying again.”

“Okay.” His fingers move over her cheek, cupping her jaw and pulling her towards him so they’re face to face. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” She swallows the tears that seem to be on their way back. “I can't believe I thought it was real.”

“It felt real.”

“So real,” she breathes, and he hugs her tighter.

She's gotten _so tired _of crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some info for nerds like me:  
hCG is known as “the pregnancy hormone” and it’s supposed to double every two-three days in the beginning, which is why amy’s asked to come back for a retest.   
chemical pregnancies are believed to affect as many of 75 percent of miscarriages and often occur because there’s something genetically very wrong with the embryo. it begins to implant, but the body recognizes that something’s wrong, and terminates the pregnancy. bodies are smart that way, but of course, this in no way eases the pain one might feel if you’ve been trying for a long time and finally get a positive result only to later find out you’re not pregnant. 
> 
> but yeah. heeeeeey. i’m like.. very sorry i really am.  
(but i promise this isn’t the end we do still have two chapters and an epilogue to go so)
> 
> i would like to give a MAJOR shoutout to the youtube channels i’ve drawn inspiration from; first and foremost Living Rosa (the only family channel on YouTube i watch EVERYTHING from and have done for three years. anyone else a fan???), and also briefly from Alex Congelliere as well as Ayla and Caleb. 
> 
> i didn’t have this beta’d because i.. don’t know, actually, i got tired and decided to just publish. sschh. so apologies for any extra mistakes. please leave a comment if you have the time and energy, i am so grateful for each one! let me know a fave quote or part or description or detail or yell at me for torturing amy. anything goes!
> 
> much love to you all for reading; i’mma try to write some fluffy christmas fics now cause it’s the season, and then the goal is to finish this before season 7, but i guess we’ll see since every chapter seems to take a month to write, lol. i’m hoping to have some more time and motivation during christmas break!
> 
> also much love to siân because she’s the biggest fan of this fic and just an awesome friend who just snapchatted me as i wrote this WOAH. happy christmas break siân <3 and also to the rest of you maybe?


	5. love, you're not alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy mourns, important conversations take place, and a new decision is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what’s that?? less than a month between updates?? YES IT IS. can’t believe i originally thought i would finish this well before s7. life didn’t really agree with me. either way - here is another chapter for you! ‘tis the chapter of emotional conversations, too. damn.
> 
> oh, and i should probably mention that this has a hint of mature content at the end, so if that makes you uncomfortable, skipping it is fine. you'll know when to stop, i think it's fairly obvious.

**june, cont.**

Amy has never called in sick for three days in a row before.

She's been on leaves, and the odd sick day is inevitable when you have a kid at daycare, but it's never been more than one or two days before she’s at least attempted to work from home. Now she can't even make herself do that.

Technically, she’s perfectly healthy, which should probably exacerbate the guilt she feels over calling in sick, but not even her FOMOW is strong enough to drag her out of the cave of misery she’s dug herself into.

It's unlike her. She's Amy Santiago, she's a vessel of productivity more days than not, and even on lazier days, she'll have the energy to go about her daily life. This zombie-like existence, where it'll take three repeats before she notices her own name and she's uncertain when she last ate a full meal, isn't what her life is like. She's been sad before, she's been heartbroken and on the verge of giving up, but it's never enveloped her quite like this. She’s never felt this alone with her pain, because there’s no one to be mad at, no external circumstances or evil forces at work. The only things she can be angry at is her body, bad luck, and maybe fate, but she can’t put up a fight against either.

On the first day after what she supposes is the start of an early miscarriage, Amy googles, scouring the Internet for more information about chemical pregnancies. Her research feels largely pointless. It’s common, there’s nothing she could have done, it’s all down to a chromosomal accident. _A chemical pregnancy can be seen as a good sign_, one of the websites encourages her, and she snorts. _It’s proof you’re able to get pregnant at all_, she reads, and maybe it’s true, but it doesn’t give much comfort. After eight months of trying for twelve hours of euphoria that were ruined by a genetic fluke, she’d have wished for more reassurance.

On the second day, she gets out of bed and dressed, thinking she can trick herself into going back to work and pretend like everything’s fine if she gets far enough. It nearly works and Jake looks relieved when Leah and her hug goodbye, but once she’s in the car, the panic attack from two days ago flashes past her eyes and she’s shaking until she can get out of the vehicle and walk back up the stairs to their apartment. She spends the rest of the day in bed. At first, she doesn’t cry, but then she hears Leah asking from the other side of the door about what she’s doing and her heart shatters hearing Jake try to explain that _mama’s just tired, she’ll play with you again tomorrow_.

On the third day, she really tries. She gets started on a presentation for work and lets Leah pretend to make her coffee in her play kitchen, and she does feel better until her phone buzzes with news from the Santiago family group chat; David and his wife are having another baby. _A welcome surprise_, the message reads, and Jake has to hold her until she stops crying. Amy’s wracked with guilt as Leah brings her stuffed animal after animal, her eyes wide with distraught confusion.

It’s after the fourth day things take a turn. As far as her days of mourning - because she supposes it is mourning, after all - have gone, day four is subdued. Equally as gray, but not as sharply painful. It’s as if someone muted the volume in their apartment and slowed down their movements, turning everything into a lackadaisical haze. Even Leah is quieter than usual, almost acting a bit nervous around her, but when the evening comes she lets Amy read her bedtime stories and she falls asleep with her hand on Amy’s cheek. It’s the most peaceful and content Amy’s felt since six days ago.

“We have the best kid,” she mumbles as she curls up with her head on Jake’s shoulder ten minutes later, and he gives her an agreeing smile. “I think I’m going back to work tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

“I need to get back to normal. I’m starting to miss it, anyway.”

“Can’t cure that FOMOW easily, huh?”

She ignores the comment. “Is the precinct still standing without me?”

He laughs. “Barely. On that note... I got a request from Holt to go on this stakeout for two days. I think I have to take it, because, well - we’ve taken a lot of days off recently.”

“Yeah, of course. I can handle a bit of solo-parenting.”

“Actually -” Jake’s voice is apologetic, tinged with a bit of regret, and Amy’s instantly on edge, lifting her head from his shoulder. “- I was thinking Leah could stay with my mom for a few days.”

“Why would she need to do that?”

“Ames, don’t take this personally -”

“I’ll decide that for myself.”

“But I think it’d be better for both of you.” Jake’s eyes are boring into hers, and there’s a gravity to his tone she wasn't expecting. “I know you don’t want this to affect her, but I think it does, even if she doesn’t understand why, and… maybe you need a couple days on your own.”

She blinks, trying to make sense of his words. “So now I can’t be a parent to my own daughter because I'm sad over this?”

“Not what I was saying.”

“Sure sounded like it.”

“Don’t make this into something it’s not,” he asks, face twisted in a pained expression, and it takes all her self control not to get up and slam the door to their bedroom. She’s learned from her mistakes, though, so this time she listens. “I love you, so much, but I don’t know how to help you when you don’t want to talk to me, and I don’t know what to say to Leah when she keeps asking why you’re sad. She notices so much - it doesn’t feel fair to her.”

“No, but it’s not forever. It’ll get better,” she says, more to ease her own remorse. “And what do you mean I don’t want to talk to you? We’ve talked.”

“Not for real.”

“What do you mean, _not for real_?”

“You haven’t asked me how I feel about this, for example.” She opens her mouth, but he shakes his head. “Don't do it because you think you have to. I know it’s worse for you. But I’m disappointed, too, you know?” He bites his lip. “I think we all need a break before we go crazy.”

She wants to object, but part of her knows he's right. They’re going crazy. Mostly her, but she can tell it’s affecting her family too, despite how desperately she wishes it wasn’t. She reluctantly swallows her anger for now - most of it is only poorly concealed guilt, anyway - and nods.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” The tension fades from his expression as he exhales, watching her like he’s searching for signs of protest.

Amy shrugs. “I feel like the world’s worst parent. But sure.”

“You’re not,” he whispers, wrapping her in a hug as she buries her face in his neck for comfort. “This is just really, really hard.”

-

Her bad conscience is even worse when she wakes up the next morning. It's made easier by Leah jumping with glee at the question of whether she wants to have a sleepover at grandma’s house, but hugging her daughter goodbye at daycare is still extra difficult. It takes five minutes longer than usual and enough cheek kisses to make the toddler try to wriggle herself out of Amy’s arms, and she’s still fighting tears when she gets in the car. She turns the music up so she won’t have to think, but her phone shuffles to _Paper Rings _by Taylor Swift and endless memories of family dance parties to the song flood her brain.

She turns it off.

Five seconds later, she turns it on again and lets the memories be a welcome reminder of why she has to keep fighting. By the time she reaches the precinct’s garage, she’s singing along at the top of her lungs.

She expects her first day back at work to be complicated, making abundantly clear how much she’s missed out on, but it’s not. After helping Holt out with a briefing, going through emails and submitting a work order for another broken fridge, she’s back to feeling like her efficient, professional self. She can do this. She can move on with her life and put this behind her. She can even follow the squad out for drinks later and have a glass of red wine for the first time in two months, enough to get her tipsy and laugh too loud at Rosa’s narration of a lively debate between Charles and a suspect about the ranking of different cheeses. Karen texts her a video of Leah pretending she’s Elsa from Frozen and gliding over the living room floor while singing the same lines of _Let It Go _on repeat, and her heart aches a little, but the guilt is easing. Jake sends her an update on the stakeout, asking if she’s doing okay, and for once, she doesn’t have to lie when she writes back _I’m doing good_.

-

She starts her second day back doing paperwork, but she doesn’t get far before she’s interrupted.

“Hey. Amy.”

She looks up from the stack of papers. “Rosa?”

“I need your help with this witness.” Rosa cocks her head in the direction of the corridor. “I know she saw my perp, but she’s confused and I don’t think she trusts me. I was wondering if you could help me talk to her? You’re much better with the emotional ones.”

“Ooh!” Amy shines up. “Is this another case for the Sleuth Sisters?”

“If it’s what gets you on board, then, sure.”

Rosa briefs her on the case before they go in, and it doesn't take much to wake Amy's excitement. As much as she loves being a lieutenant, likes the administrative work and appreciates the more flexible hours, she does miss the constant surprises and adrenaline rushes that come with being out in the field. She even misses this, the simple interacting with people in order to both help them and discover new clues, anything leading closer to a solved case. She enters the room with a pep in her step and an ambition to help, but freezes when she sees the witness.

At first, she wonders if it's the same tension she’s felt the handful of times she's had to question a familiar face - an identical twin of a high school bully, or a former neighbor she held a grudge against - but it only takes a closer look to realize that's not the issue. Amy doesn't recognize this woman.

The witness simply happens to be very pregnant.

She doesn’t ask, because it’s not pertinent to the case, but Amy would put the woman at around six-seven months. Too far along for it to go unnoticed, not yet at the point where it looks like you’ve swallowed an exercise ball. She remembers loving that part of pregnancy, with the nausea gone and the energy returning. Her jealousy is a physical ache when she sees the witness placing her palm high up on her stomach, smiling in the same way Amy remembers she would do whenever she’d feel kicks.

The woman is shy at first, talking in a low voice with short sentences, and she keeps her hands atop the baby bump the whole time. Amy doesn’t blame her - she knows how naturally the instinct comes - but it doesn’t keep her from wishing the woman would stop drawing more attention to her state.

She doesn’t remember what questions she asks. She doesn’t remember what the woman answers. She makes notes but isn’t sure what she’s writing. All she can focus on is how the witness seems to personify the romanticized pregnancy glow, with shiny, thick hair and a cute bump. Amy’s using so much willpower in order not to cry, panic, or leave the room, it’s making her sweat, and yet she can tell from Rosa’s quizzical glances that her behavior is conspicuous. She can’t hide her envious anxiety, because every instance the woman touches her belly is another reminder of the pregnancy Amy thought she had and lost.

Amy rushes towards the women’s bathroom the second it’s over. She needs to breathe, put her head between her knees and let the tears come until she’s cried out every drop of frustration over her situation, the unfairness of it all, the deep shame in not even being able to feel happy for someone else anymore. She’s disgusted with herself. Eight months of limbo trying to conceive has officially made her insane.

She’s leaning over the sink and splashing cold water on her face when Rosa catches up with her.

“Amy? What the _fuck_ was that about?”

“Nothing. It was nothing,” she rambles. “I’m good. Great.”

“No, you’re acting weirder than usual, and something’s clearly up. Come on.” Rosa’s grip on her wrist is firm without feeling pressuring, and Amy’s too shaky to protest, so she follows her friend to the evidence locker.

“Can you sit down?” Amy nods. “Okay, great. Do you need your meds?” She manages another, more tentative, nod. “Okay, wait here and I’ll get them. Handbag, outer pocket, right?”

Rosa disappears before she can confirm the information. She returns a couple of minutes later with two cups of tea and a prescription bottle, handing Amy the anxiety medication and gesturing at her to sit down before giving her a stern look.

“Okay, Santiago. Tell me what’s up before I get mad at you for making that witness feel weirded out.”

“I’m sorry.” Amy twists the cap, swallowing one of the pills before sitting down on the floor next to Rosa, their backs against a shelf of cardboard boxes. “You didn’t tell me she was pregnant.”

“No, because I didn’t know it was something you would act all loony about.” Rosa raises a brow. “What’s up? Are you pregnant again? That’s usually when you’re crying in here.”

She sighs, twisting back the cap and placing it on the floor beside her. “No, I’m not pregnant.”

“So?”

“We’ve been trying since fall,” Amy blurts out, admitting it to someone else for the first time in six months. “With IVF, now, but I’m still not pregnant. I almost was. Or I was, but I had an early miscarriage, so… no.”

Rosa nods slowly, bringing the cup of tea to her lips. “Damn.”

“It took eight months before we got a positive test. Ovulation testing, scheduling, IVF with shots and pills and money and a billion doctor’s visits. Then we _finally _found out I was pregnant.” The words are flying out of her, an unstoppable flow once she’s found them. “Except not even a _day_ later, we found out it wasn’t happening, the numbers were too low. Chemical pregnancy. It’s why I was gone last week.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” She bites her lip. “God, it’s so good to tell someone.” “Uh-huh. _Wait._” Rosa scrunches her nose and knits her brows like Amy just critiqued _The Holiday_. “You haven’t told anyone?”

Amy laughs. “How would I do that? Call a briefing, stand in front of everyone and say _hi, just so everyone knows, I’m trying to have another baby but I have shitty ovaries so it’s not going well and it’s making me depressed?_ Sure.”

“Not a public announcement, dum-dum. But you could have told your friends.”

“I didn’t want people to know. It’s been hard enough to deal with on my own. ”

“And I get that,” Rosa nods. “But there are people here who care about you. We could have been there for you.”

“How? Steered me away from every pregnant woman in case I start crying? I’m sorry, Rosa, but I don’t see how it would work.”

“Maybe not, but we could have helped! I could have known not to ask you to work with me on this specific witness instead of sitting through that shitshow!” She groans. “I know you hate accepting help or whatever, but you’re not alone in this, even if you think you are.”

Amy looks down at her shoes. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. Just… don’t torture yourself over this more than you have to. It’s not worth it.”

They sit like that for another moment, no sounds but the occasional sips of tea and heavy breaths as Amy feels the anxiety fade from a heavy storm to a cool breeze. She still feels guilty over ruining the case for Rosa, for the poor pregnant woman who probably thinks Amy’s a sociopath, but the tea and company are helping more than she can express. She knows Rosa’s right, too - she’s been keeping this pain mostly to herself for so long, never considering the option of talking about it. It’s a little bit of performance anxiety, a little bit of embarrassment and a little bit of stigma. She’s not _supposed_ to struggle with getting pregnant.

“I guess I was afraid if I talked about it, it would make it more real.” The realization takes shape as she speaks it. “Like, as long as we didn’t tell anyone, I could pretend it wasn’t happening.”

“But it’s already real, isn’t it? Talking about it won’t change that.”

“I guess not.”

Much to Amy’s surprise, her friend, who could and probably would break Amy’s arm if she hugged her without asking, lays a hand on her shoulder and squeezes it gently.

“Look, I get if you don’t want to talk about it right now. It’s fine. But if you want to come over tonight, watch a Nancy Meyers movie and drink tequila, you can. I won’t bully you if you cry.”

The sentiment is sweet, and so very _Rosa _of her, it makes Amy throw her arms around her best friend in gratitude, risking the fact that she might lose her arm. Rosa grunts, but then she leans into the hug for a brief, precious moment before disentangling herself.

“I’ll expect you at eight,” Rosa says before collecting their teacups and standing up. “Bring pizza.”

This time, Amy manages a proper smile. “I’ll be there.”

-

She tries to get back to work, but her focus is done and the precinct appears calm, so she takes the freedom of working from home for the rest of the day. There are only three hours left until she’s supposed to pick up Leah, anyway, and the apartment could use some cleaning. Her daughter’s room, in particular, is a mess so thorough Amy’s nearly impressed, but mostly shocked by how a person so tiny can create so much chaos. There’s no question about which parent the child inherited her non-existent organization skills from, she thinks, and gets to work on pairing together different puzzle pieces with their boxes.

It’s when she’s laying on her stomach, trying to get a hold of the pieces that’s made their way underneath Leah’s bed, that she finds something. There’s a plastic bag pushed all the way to the wall, and she reaches for it to see what it is. She can’t see clearly through the packaging, so she unwraps it, pulling out a white toddler-size t-shirt with black arms and fancified gold writing that reads _Promoted To Big Sister_.

The heaviness in her chest returns with a vengeance when she realizes Jake must have ordered it - either during the few hours they thought they were having another baby, or even earlier. She clutches the item to her chest and closes her eyes, anticipating the tears.

“Shit. I was hoping you wouldn’t find that.”

Amy turns her head to find Jake standing in the door opening. It's clear from the messy hair and crumpled t-shirt that he's coming straight from a long work shift without showering first, and the bags under his eyes make her wonder when he last slept.

“It's okay,” she says quickly, folding the item so she can't see the design. “Just… can you take it?”

He nods, taking it from her hands and sitting down across from her on the gray long-pile rug, putting the shirt behind his back.

“I can hide that better. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” Amy snivels. “It's fine. I'm fine.” She stands up, picking up a stuffed Ikea shark from the floor and putting it on Leah's bed.

“You're cleaning.”

“Yeah.” She finds an illustrated Harry Potter-book at the foot of the bed and returns it to its shelf. “It calms me. How was the stakeout?”

“Good,” he nods. “How are you?”

“I'm okay. I think. How are you?”

His smile bears heavy traces of exhaustion. “Also okay, I think. Did a lot of thinking while I was away, actually.”

“Yeah.” Amy picks up a basket of fabric vegetables, putting them near the play kitchen before she sits down across from Jake again. “So did I.”

“Do you want to share, or…?”

“No - you go first.”

Jake grimaces. They’ve gotten better at this over the years, finding a balance between his hesitancy to lay bare his emotions in serious conversation and her tendency to read into details and draw the worst conclusions posthaste, but she can still sense his discomfort as he reaches for a stuffed dragon from Leah’s bed, squeezing it to keep his hands occupied.

“I know I don’t know what it feels like,” he says slowly. “It’s not my body that’s…”

“Broken,” she fills in reflexively.

“Putting up a bit of a fight,” he corrects her with an unyielding look. “But you’ve been acting a bit like it doesn’t hurt for me, too. I know it was only a day, but for that day… I was already ordering that shirt for Lee, you know? I was so excited.”

“I know. I’ve really been busy feeling sorry for myself, huh?” She tries to laugh, but the chuckle dies out like a droplet of water swallowed by a raging fire.

“No, you’ve been suffering. Don’t be mad at yourself for that. Just… you’re not alone in this.” His hand reaches out to hold hers, and she squeezes it tight.

“It’s funny. Rosa told me the same thing today.”

“You talked to Rosa?”

“Yeah. I’m going over there for Nancy Meyers and tequila tonight.”

“Good, you need it.”

“I do, huh?” This time, the quiet laughter survives. The corners of Jake’s mouth quirk up.

She's missed seeing him smile, she realizes. She's missed sharing happiness with him. They’ve had moments of hope, and even when everything has felt dark, they've still smiled and had fun with their daughter; but she wonders when they last laughed at something trivial just the two of them. It feels like ages.

“I miss our normal life,” she says, because it's the only way she can think of to describe it. “I’m sorry I brought you into this mess. It's all my fault.”

Jake frowns. “No, we agreed on trying IVF.”

“I meant, I'm sorry we're struggling at all.”

“I don't think I get it -”

“It's my body that's the problem, right? If only you’d married a woman with well-functioning ovaries, you wouldn't be sitting here.”

She's serious, but the way he narrows his eyes and looks at her like he doesn't know if she's joking or not, makes her giggle. He joins in, shaking his head in disbelief, and for a moment, it feels like old times.

“I know this might be hard to believe,” he grins, “but Amy Santiago, I did not marry you for your ovaries_._”

“Well, that's a relief.”

“I swear. I love _you_, more than anything in the world except our daughter, and that means I love all parts of you.”

“Even my shitty ovaries?”

Jake rolls his eyes lovingly. “They wouldn't be the _first_ thing I listed, but, yes. I love them too.”

She laughs again. “Thanks, babe.”

“You're welcome.”

“I love you, too.” Amy closes the short bit of distance between them, wrapping him in a close hug as they sit there on the carpet. She's sniveling again, drying her eyes against his flannel, and he strokes her upper back and kisses the top of her head as he holds her. “So, so much.”

They sit like that for a moment, not moving more than the slightest of shifts, another soft kiss pressed to a neck or a cheek.

“Do you want to think about the next step?” Jake asks, and she nods.

“We still have two frozen embryos left - we could transfer those and hope one sticks.”

His eyes gleam in that mischievous way she recognizes so well, maybe even from the first day they became partners. “And are we doing both at once?”

“I guess we might as well, right?”

Jake pumps his fist in a childish victory gesture, and it's Amy's turn to roll her eyes. Her skepticism is half-hearted, though, because it's hard to remain unaffected by his infectious happiness.

“I can't wait to be a family of five with you,” he whispers into her ear, pulling her onto his lap, and she groans.

“You’ve _got _to stop saying that, I swear you’re going to jinx it.”

~

**august.**

Maybe it’s the fact that she’s gotten used to it, that she’s not forcing her body to produce an unnatural amount of mature eggs, or that she’s filled with so much _now-or-never _furious ambition, but Amy experiences their second attempt with fertility treatments to flow much easier. She takes the medications, is thankful they don’t involve _as_ many injections this time, goes to checkups, and does all she can to maximize her chances in the meantime. No tip is too absurd in comparison with her desperation for this to succeed. She tries acupuncture and changes her diet. She cuts back on caffeine despite the headaches it gives her, and takes even more vitamins. She does a few tries at fertility yoga, which mostly fail when Jake walks in on her doing a very wobbly supported shoulder stand and explodes in laughter, or when Leah insists on watching and is silent for exactly one minute before she wants to use Amy as a jungle gym and tries to climb on top of her in bridge pose. At first, Amy’s frustrated, but then she thinks of the sources she’s read about laughter being able to boost fertility, and lets the yoga session turn into a giggling tickle fight with her toddler. It’s much more fun, anyway.

She continues the tips after the transfer, too. She wears fuzzy socks for her day of bed rest even though it’s the end of July and their bedroom is uncomfortably heated as is, because keeping your feet warm is supposed to boost chances of implantation. She orders jasmine scented candles for the same reason, but it only takes a minute after lighting one for her to realize she’s wildly allergic. In the end, there’s nothing to do but wait, hope, and try to relax.

They decide to go all-in for the relaxation part. Truthfully, it’s not as much a decision as an offer from Charles and Genevieve to tag along for free on their family vacation after a pair of Boyle cousins dropped out, and not as much relaxation as it is a change of environment to chase their dare-devil two-and-a-half-year-old around in, but it _is_ a paid-for one-week-trip to a family-friendly resort in Mexico and they’re not going to say no. Amy packs two pregnancy tests in her bag, and they’re on their way.

She worries about whether being on vacation with Charles will inevitably mean an abundance of intrusive questions and terrifying dining choices, but either Genevieve or Jake must keep him in check, because it’s neither. Rather, having two extra adults present ends up hugely improving the vacation - there's always someone guarding the kids, and Amy finds herself finishing reading one book, a poetry collection and listening to two podcasts already in the first four days. She gets her daily workout in by chasing Leah around, trying to prevent her from jumping headfirst from the deep end of the pool. She takes turns with Jake to pretend they're sea monsters who want to eat Leah's toes while she floats around with her swim ring and puffs, laughing merrily at them both. She discovers that the best way to get her daughter to let her put on sunscreen is if she gets to watch YouTube clips on the iPad meanwhile, and reaffirms that the best way to get Jake to put it on is to do it for him, then accept his offer of returning the favor. They try out all of the resort’s playgrounds and eat a ton of ice cream to keep cool. On one of the days, Jake and Leah take a nap together in the shadow spooning on a daybed, and Amy takes about a hundred pictures before scooching her bed as close to theirs as possible.

With her heart full, and her relaxation levels higher than they've been for a long time, she almost forgets it's time to take a pregnancy test.

-

It's evening by the time she remembers.

Charles and Genevieve have offered to babysit Leah for a night in exchange for Jake and Amy watching Nikolaj the next, which gives them the rare chance to have a proper date night. Amy gets dressed up, opting to go the extra mile with a sleek, black, v-neck dress that hasn’t seen the light of day since their honeymoon, and paints her lips a matte red for a pop of color. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, she worries it’s too much - the dress sits tighter over her hips than it used to and the makeup feels like she’s overcompensating - but the way Jake’s gaze lands on her once she steps out, how his eyes widen and he swallows a gulp of air, makes her stresses dissipate.

Eight years of dating, five years of marriage, and he still looks at her with as much awe as he did their first night together.

He’s wearing a familiar pastel pink button-down, paired tastefully with dark jeans and the curls she still goes crazy for, so Amy figures she looks at him the same way.

It is with great willpower they make it down to the restaurant in time for their reservation, only stopping once to make out against the wall of a hotel corridor. They’re seated at a nice table near a window with an ocean view, and it takes the waiter placing two drink menus on their table for Amy to realize why it feels like she’s forgotten something.

“Shit,” she mumbles, biting her lip as she reads the wine list.

Jake looks up, a horrified look on his face. “What? Don't tell me they only have Orangina for orange soda.”

“No, it’s not that. I just remembered I don’t know if I _can_ drink. I forgot to take a pregnancy test.”

“That’s today?”

“Yeah. I was going to take it this morning, but then we slept in and Leah woke us up by jumping in our bed...” “And then Charles knocked on our door and asked us to come down to the breakfast buffet in five minutes,” Jake nods, bringing his hand up to his chin as if he’s in deep thought. “Well, we could leave and take it now?”

Amy considers it, but as much as she wants to find out, she also wants to sit here forever. Something about the restaurant’s lighting is making her husband look especially gorgeous, and it’s been way too long since they last sat through a proper nice dinner. She needs this. They need this.

“No,” she decides, intertwining her hand with his across the table. “Let’s have a quick dinner. I won’t drink anything, and then we’ll take a test.”

“Okay. Then I won’t drink either,” Jake declares, flipping to the non-alcoholic drinks with his free hand. “Yes! Regular orange soda!”

“You don’t have to just because I can’t -”

“Ames, I’m repeating, _regular orange soda_. This is the opposite of a problem. Plus,” he shrugs, “I literally just want to spend time with you.”

His tone is so genuine, his smile so sweet, she can’t stop herself from leaning forward and kissing him despite the looks from their fellow restaurant-goers.

The dinner is wonderful, yet Amy can’t shake her nervousness. It bothers her. She’s having a luxurious meal, toasting in fruity soda together with the love of her life, and she can’t even be fully present in this moment because she’s worried about what the test will show. If this attempt has failed, she’ll have to do another full round of IVF, even though the thought of more injections makes her want to scream. If they get another negative test, it’ll be ten months and counting of this taking up too big a part of their lives, and Amy’s_ tired_.

She wants to be pregnant and she wants to have another baby, but she also wants to enjoy life with her family _without_ worrying about cycles, ovulation tests, and clinic check-ups. She wants to go on more of these date nights, more vacations, and share a glass of wine with her husband in the evening because she can. She’s tired of rules and recommendations, of counting, scheduling, and planning. For ten months she’s tried to be patient, but now the exhaustion has begun to creep over her.

They rush back to the suite once the dinner is done. Jake waits outside the bathroom while she takes the test, tries to make her hands stop shaking as she washes them, and carefully places the test display-down on the sink. He hugs her when she comes out, and she lets herself relax for a second in his arms even though she feels sick with anxiety.

They sit on the balcony, drinking from glasses of alcohol-free champagne in silence until the timer on her phone rings. Jake goes to get the test from the bathroom, but Amy feels like she knows the result before he’s given it to her.

The test shows a bolded, plain, _Not Pregnant_, and she scoots it with her foot across the balcony, getting it as far away as possible.

“I’m sorry, “ Jake whispers, letting her lean her head on his shoulder and squeezing her hand.

She exhales, forcing herself not to cry. “So am I.”

“What do we do now?”

“First, I say we order a bottle of _real_ champagne.”

Jake raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t object.

Much like it was a sudden thought that awakened a long lingering feeling when she first suggested they’d start trying, this time it's the immediate and overpowering negativity bringing up the growing sensation of impending burnout, that makes her say what she's thinking.

“I want to stop.”

Jake looks at her with as much shock as if she’d said she was thinking of canceling her _Staples _Rewards Membership. “You want to… stop?”

She nods.

“Like.. just… stopping?”

“You heard me. I don't think I want to do this anymore.” Amy draws a shaky breath, looking down at their intertwined hands. “If we have another go at IVF, we have to do the whole thing again. I guess we _could_, but it’s so much money, Jake.”

“We could work it out,” he mumbles.

“We could. I just don't know if I want to.”

“But… you wanted another baby.”

“And I still do.” She thinks of all the families she’s seen at the resort over the last few days. Sisters and brothers playing together, a light-haired toddler taking a break from swinging to run and kiss their baby sibling’s head, tiny infants with sunhats and baby swimsuits eliciting screams of happiness from being in the water while their big siblings try to entertain them. It’s painful to imagine never having her dream of more than one kid fulfilled, but it’s infinitely more agonizing to feel like she’s missing out on the wonderful life she _does _have.

“But it's been so long. It’s been so much pain, time and tears, and I'm still not pregnant. Remember when you said we’d do IVF as long as I felt it was worth it for me?”

Jake nods slowly. He’s watching her with a wistful look on his face, which is somehow more heartbreaking than the negative test.

“I don't think it is worth it for me anymore,” she whispers.

“I… are you sure, Ames?”

“No,” she confesses. “Yes. For now, I’m sure.”

He wraps his arms around her again, neither of them saying anything as she twists her head so their foreheads are touching. Trailing her fingers against his jawline, she cups his face, lips brushing against his with the softness of doing it for the first time and the familiarity of doing it for the thousandth. He’s a little surprised by the move, but then he’s kissing her back just as carefully, one hand tangling in her hair before he draws back.

“I’ll go get us that bottle of champagne,” he says, and squeezes her hand another time before leaving.

The sun’s starting to set, painting the sky a captivating roseate-orange blend. It fills Amy with a sense of peace and relief - a hope that her life will soon feel more like her own again.

Checking her phone inside, she sees that Charles has texted them a picture of a soundly sleeping Leah. She ignores the trio of winking emojis he’s written after encouraging them to _have_ _a good night _and sends back two hearts instead. She’s already missing her daughter so badly it’s physically painful, and her eyes linger on the picture long after she’s replied, but she reminds herself that tomorrow is only hours away. Tonight is date night, and she’s determined to make it a good one despite its unconventional start.

Jake returns ten minutes later, all out of breath from what he describes as _a brisk walk to the corner store to buy the fanciest bottle they had for a decent price_, and she smiles and kisses his cheek before accepting a glass.

“This is beautiful,” she says, moving aside so there’s space for him on the patio loveseat.

“The sunset?”

“This night. The sunset. You.”

“You’re beautiful-ler.” His reply is as reflexive as her eye-roll.

“I mean it. I want to enjoy this night with you. Hell, I just want to enjoy my _life_,” Amy gives the abandoned test a death-glare, “without this constant stress. It’s ruining everything.”

“It hasn’t ruined everything...”

“No, but everything would still be better if it wasn’t there, you know?” She shrugs and he nods, taking a sip from his glass. “I want to get back to our normal life. This vacation is making me realize how much I miss it.”

“What do you miss?”

“Being relaxed. Having any sort of free time. I miss being able to just live our lives with our amazing daughter, and not be constantly thinking of whether I’ve taken this and that medication or gone to this and that appointment and what day of what cycle it is.”

“I get that.” There’s a playful smile on his lips, and she’s about to ask what he thinks is so funny before he speaks again. “Do you think maybe we make such great kids that the universe couldn’t handle more than one? Think about it! Your brain, and my good looks - maybe it’s too powerful a combination, and if we have more children, everything will, like.. explode.”

It’s a ludicrous theory, but he delivers it with so much conviction it makes her snort, laughing until there are tears in her eyes.

“I’ll have to admit,” she says when she can finally form words again, “it sounds _way_ more plausible than any other explanation.”

There’s a lighter atmosphere between them after his joke, the warm evening air a little easier to breathe. They change the topic, drink more wine, and she makes less note of what they’re talking about than how content she’s feeling. It's like just making the decision to stop and accept the situation, rather than doing everything in her power to change it, is a giant block of stone off her shoulders. Without it, she can feel like herself again. The painful thought of never having another baby still bites at her, but for once, she's able to push it aside and refill her glass instead.

She wonders when they last had a proper date night like this. She’s certain it’s been too long - if nothing else, then for the way she finds her eyes resting in certain places after a while. The one unbuttoned button on his shirt, revealing a bit of slightly tanned chest. The way his fingers wrap around the thin glass. His neck, practically asking to be peppered with nips and bites. His arms, his hands, the thighs she can't help but rest her hand on.

A moment of deep eye contact, meeting his curiosity before she blushes, looking away.

“Another thing I miss about my life,” she says, struck with sudden confidence. “Having sex with you without always thinking about whether I’ll get pregnant.”

“Woah there.” Jake coughs, examining her expression. “Did you have four drinks already?”

She shakes her head.

“Hmm. Anyway - it's okay, Ames.”

“For you, maybe.” She swallows the last in her glass. “Less so for me.”

His cheeks turn a dark crimson. “I'm sorry -”

“It's not your fault,” she assures him. “Honestly, _I _haven't let it be about me. Or us. But - god - I miss it being just for pleasure.”

“Me too.”

The heated glance he gives her is a physical sensation, making desire pool in the pit of her stomach and sending her nerves on full alert when his hand touches her bare inner thigh, softly stroking.

“I can't remember when we last were child-free together for a whole night,” she whispers, and he smiles a knowing smile. “Let's make the most of it.”

“If you say so.”

She pulls him in for a searing kiss, sighing with pleasure as he moves his hand higher, closer to where she's aching for if to be.

“Let's go inside, babe.”

She’s nervous about so many things - whether she’ll change her mind tomorrow, whether this counts as giving up, if it makes her weak - but as Jake’s fingers brush over the faint bruises from the last injections with so much reverence, and he makes a point of kissing the thin white stripes on her lower abdomen that remain tangible proof she once carried their child inside of her, she decides those thoughts can wait. His lips move to her centre, and she gasps so sharply, he places a hand on her hip to keep her still.

“Don’t you dare stop,” she breathes, feeling the vibrations of his laugh before he sucks harder and everything is forgotten except the blissful sensation of his tongue against her and the building, pleasant tension as he pushes her closer to the edge.

It’s a night of relief, in more than one sense.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how’d you like that ending, huh? maybe someday i’ll finish AND publish a smut fic. someday. maybe… i'm not entirely against writing an extension of this ending.
> 
> some notes;  
\- yes, fertility yoga is a thing.  
\- amy taking anxiety medication is an important headcanon to me, because i do and i think it’s pretty realistic. there are ones that are safe to take during pregnancy/trying to conceive etc. so don’t you worry.  
\- there’s a sneaky little line from rosa that’s a shoutout to one of my favorite fics ever; johnny-and-dora’s holding back the flood. go read it if you haven’t.  
\- i’ve been a little nervous about jake being in character for this chapter, but also, it’s such a different situation from anything in the show and he’s older and i think he’s grown in a lot of ways. i hope it works.
> 
> hey! i hope all of you had a nice christmas and new year’s! mine were okay, but the best part was my start of the new year; i went to visit my baby cousins who are four, two, and one-month-old and i got to HOLD A BABY!!!!!!!! it was INCREDIBLE. their heads smell so good. believe it or not but i actually hadn’t held a baby before this in like, over four years??
> 
> but enough about that! we’re getting close to the ending, folks, and i’m SO hyped to write chapter six but in the meantime please let me know what you thought of this - any favorite parts or quotes or details or well, anything, will have me rolling around on the floor squealing with happiness!! i personally really like the fertility yoga.. and the end..


	6. i'll be your arms, i'll be your steady satellite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Santiago Siblings with families spend a weekend together, Amy’s feeling weird, and Jake’s getting suspicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nope. you’re not dreaming. i wrote this chapter in 9 days (+ a few days of editing).  
look, i have been thinking of and longing for the chance to write this chapter since i started planning the fic back in august. i hope you will enjoy reading it as much as i have enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> once again, i want to give the disclaimer that this is a fictional case of fertility problems, where i have chosen what will happen based on what fits the story. people struggle far longer and have far worse experiences than what this fic depicts, and i give my respect to anyone who’s ever actually had to go through it.

**september.**

Amy throws out the ovulation tests first. Then, most of the pregnancy tests.

She keeps a few, in case of emergencies, but she hides them so far inside their bathroom cabinet, buried underneath boxes of band-aids and disinfectant wipes, she tells herself it’s the same thing.

She also throws out the vitamin supplements and the gross herbal teas, and puts the cherished pages of the fertility binder through her paper shredder while Jake shakes his head at her.

“You’re being crazy,” he states when she empties the paper confetti in the trash, immediately tying the bag shut and placing it by the door.

“Nope,” she responds. “I’m finally being sane.”

She stops doing yoga, not that she got into a habit with it in the first place. She goes back to her usual diet and coffee habits. She deletes every fertility-related bookmark off of her computer and unfollows all the Instagram accounts she once tried to find support in. There’s a smidge of panic and hard-hitting grief the first few times she sees a pregnant person somewhere, a harsh pain that comes with knowing for certain she’ll never experience it again, but most of all, Amy feels free. As heartrending as the knowledge is, she’d take it over uncertainty any day of the week.

Her days of the week are moving quickly, too. It's like the moment she stopped being consumed by this, the rest of her life caught up with her, and now it’s speeding past. Leah starts her first Tiny Tots preschool class, and her parents cry for a good ten minutes after dropping her off the first time because _their baby is growing up_ and it’s all moving too fast. They start doing proper research on allergy-friendly cats and even schedule a visit at a cattery. Work speeds up and she has to work overtime for more days in a row than she's done since having a kid, making her fear their apartment will fall into pieces and her daughter forget who she is, but she comes home each night to dinner on the table and Leah in pajamas begging her to read a bedtime story. She makes sure to thoroughly thank her husband, especially the night when there’s a takeout box with potato pancakes waiting for her, and promises him a proper reward once the weekend rolls around.

“Cool, cool,” he mumbles half-asleep as he makes himself the little spoon in bed. “Also, while we’re on the topic, those potato pancakes definitely weren’t because Leah and I had ice cream for dinner. In case you were thinking that.”

“_Jake_.”

“Mm. Goodnight, babe.”

Even without the fertility treatments, her free time between work and family life remains strictly limited, but she does manage to squeeze in something much needed. Every other Thursday night at eight o’clock sharp, Amy finds herself outside the door to Rosa’s apartment, and every night Rosa cuts right to the chase.

“You’re not pregnant?”

“Nope.”

“Not taking any fertility medication?”

“Stopped them all.”

“Take a shot, Santiago.”

She’s decided not to tell more people about her experiences, doesn’t see the point when all she wants is to forget, but every other Thursday night, she vents. Rosa lets her speak, sometimes offering commentary but mostly just nodding, and Amy’s pleasantly surprised to discover it helps.

She’s not alone, and most importantly, she’s going to be okay again.

~

**october.**

As the end of October arrives, it becomes time for the weekend with all the Santiago siblings and their families renting a cabin upstate. Tony calls it a tradition even though it's the first time they're doing it, but when Amy points this out, he simply shrugs and says it's important to have goals in life.

At first, she's skeptical about it - spending four days in a cabin with fifteen adults, thirteen kids and one dog feels like a polar opposite to the relaxed family time she craves - but it's been forever since she saw them all and she supposes she could use some time away from Brooklyn’s buzzing city life, so they decide to go. She nearly regrets it after three hours in the car with the _Frozen_-soundtrack on repeat, but then they reach their destination, and all is forgiven when Leah runs to hug all her cousins.

Friday morning, they arrange a big leaf fight in the yard. At first, it's kids against adults, but as more and more children drop out, it becomes Santiago siblings against partners, and as more and more adults drop out too, eventually it's just Amy and Julian against Jake. The fight lasts until Jake starts complaining about there being leaves in his ear. At that point, Amy's laughing so hard her stomach hurts.

“Loser does all the dishes after lunch,” Julian grins, and Jake looks like he's about to cry.

Amy checks in on him after ten minutes. His shirt is wet from the soapy water and she can see the terror in his eyes as he looks to the mountain of dirty plates, glasses, and cutlery, but he’s scrubbing hard at them one by one with furious determination.

“Need any help, babe?” She sneaks her arms around him from behind, pressing a kiss to his neck and pulling out a small twig that’s still stuck in the back of his hair.

“Desperately,” he groans, wiping his hands on his jeans and facing her. “But I have to prove my strength to your brothers.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure Julian just wanted a reason to see you in a wet t-shirt.”

“He could have just asked.”

Amy laughs, shaking her head. “I’ll help you out.”

He squints. “Are you sure? You look kind of... tired.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Not like that,” he says, rolling his eyes. “But you look a little - I don’t know - pale? Did you not have coffee this morning?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t finish it. Creamer tasted weird.” He opens his mouth to say something, but she shuts him up with a glare. “I’m fine. Come on, I’ll help you finish these.”

-

They manage to get done right on time for a family walk in the woods. Leah makes it about a quarter of a mile before she starts complaining, so Jake carries her on his shoulders, which results in immediate chaos and tears from David’s twins when they demand the same and David can’t carry them both. Amy helps her brother by carrying Samuel on her shoulders, but the kid must have dog hair on his clothes from playing with Julian's dog, because her nose gets stuffy after only a minute. If it weren’t for the animal being straight-up adorable, or for Leah's excitement when Julian asks her if she wants to hold Oscar’s leash for a minute, Amy swears she would be yelling at this dog, too.

The stuffy nose lasts for the entire afternoon, and she curses the fact that she forgot her allergy nasal sprays at home. Luckily, she’s surrounded by plenty of good distractions, and the afternoon disappears in a jumble of trying to keep different children from hurting themselves or others while also trying to make sure they’re happy, and if she’s not watching any kids, she’s trying to keep up with what feels like a billion different conversations going on at the same time. It’s enough to make anyone exhausted. She tries to have another cup of coffee, black this time to avoid the probably-bad creamer, but she only gets down a few sips before her throat goes all dry and she has to breathe real hard for the nausea to pass. She pours out the rest in the kitchen sink.

Despite her tiredness and stuffy nose and sudden coffee aversion, Amy has a lovely day. When afternoon becomes evening, everyone who isn’t cooking dinner makes their way down to the nearby lake to watch the sunset. Leah’s in Jake’s arms with her head on his shoulder, looking all cozy in her purple fluffy hoodie as she sings the lyrics to _Moana_ in the wrong order, and Amy can’t fight the urge to kiss her sweet little face until Leah grimaces and says _stop, mama_, hiding her face in Jake’s shirt as he laughs.

They’re her favorite sight in the world - the love of her life, and the child who’s held Amy’s whole heart in her hands since the first time she waved to them on an ultrasound screen over three years ago. Jake whispers something to Leah that Amy can’t hear, the girl giggles, and her heart aches with how much she loves them. She may never get the kids-plural family she pictured in her younger days, but she gets _this_, and it’s better than anything she could have imagined.

-

When all the kids have gone to bed - save for seven-month-old Charlie, who’s wide awake and happy to get passed around between different pairs of arms - the adults gather in the living room for a chance at uninterrupted conversation and a glass of wine. Amy finds space in the corner of a couch, with Jake on her left and Tony’s wife Clara in an armchair on her right, and gratefully accepts the glass of red wine Lucas gives her. She takes a sip, first enjoying the taste, but the second sip tastes off and the third is _awful_. She tries to hide her grimace as she puts it down on the side table and asks for a glass of water instead.

She's not really listening to the conversation, zoning out and just enjoying the comfort of Jake's arm around her shoulders, but Clara nudging her arm gets her attention.

“Do you want to hold Charlie for a while, Amy?”

“I’d love to,” she says, and the next second there's a baby in her arms who's shooting her the brightest of toothless smiles and reaching for her necklace. Charlie’s chubby fingers try to grab the_ L_ and _J_-pendants, so she gently separates his hands from them and he starts playing with a sling of her hair instead.

“Oh, you're strong,” she laughs as he grips it. “Wow.”

“Tell me about it,” Clara laughs. “Sometimes he’s lucky he’s cute.”

Amy smiles. The baby is already snuggling his head into her chest, making himself comfortable. He's truly adorable with round cheeks and light-ginger hair, melting her heart as he grips onto her shirt.

She's missed this. Still, it’s less painful now that she knows - she might never have more babies of her own, but she’ll always have plenty of nephews and nieces to hold, cuddle and play with.

“You're adorable,” she whispers to Charlie with a kiss to his forehead. “Yes, you are.”

“Hey, Amy?” David catches her attention from the opposite couch. “Aren't you guys going to have more kids?”

She can feel Jake freeze next to her.

“We’ve thought of it,” she says calmly. “But we landed on one kid. We’re happy with that.”

Jake squeezes her shoulder.

“Really? Huh.” David nods in surprise. “Don’t you want more kids, Jake?”

“It's not my decision to make,” he shrugs, like it was an obvious fact. “I'm just hoping we can get a cat soon.”

Charlie falls asleep in Amy's arms, staying there even as people begin to drop out and head to bed. She gives him back to Tony when it’s time for a diaper change, closing her eyes and leaning against Jake's chest once her arms are free again.

“You okay, Ames?”

“Yeah,” she promises. “Just sleepy.”

“You didn't drink anything,” he notes, nodding to her untouched glass.

“Did you try the wine?” He nods. “I hated it. I think Julian has crappy taste in alcohol.”

Jake shrugs. “It tasted fine to me. Maybe your taste buds are being weird.”

“Or I have better taste than you.” She kisses him on the cheek. “Let's go to bed, babe.”

-

She’s barely closed her eyes before Leah climbs into their bed, full of energy as she makes space between her parents.

“I wanna go outside and play,” she insists, and when this doesn’t garner enough of a response, she frowns. “It’s morning!”

Amy reluctantly opens her eyes to reach for her phone, reading the time. “Half-past seven.” _Weird. _They went to bed at one a.m. and Leah’s slept through the night, yet it feels like she was woken up after ten minutes.

“Hey, I have an idea,” says Jake, pulling his daughter close and tickling her neck. “How about we play in here for a while? I have a great idea for something.”

“What?”

“Well, you see, bumblebee, you’re a super brave space pirate. This bed is your spaceship, and mama and I are your innocent, weak humans that you’ve captured.” He yawns. “The rules are that we _have_ to lay still. If we move, we’ll fall out into space and, uh, die.”

“Okay! Dada, _still_!”

“I love this game,” Amy mumbles, pulling the covers closer around herself.

The spaceship game lasts a full ten minutes before Leah tires, deciding that her parents are too boring captives for her taste and starting a new game that circles around her trying to jump from the bed onto her mattress in increasingly creative and less-than-safe ways. Jake defuses the situation before she tries to do a backflip, suggesting that they get out of bed and see if any other cousins are up yet, and Amy tries to open her eyes again. It’s painful - her body _screams_ for more sleep, and she channels this into the pleading look she gives Jake.

“Can I get another half hour? I feel like I’m going to collapse if I get up now.”

“Huh.” A line appears between his brows. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yeah,” she yawns. “I just need thirty minutes, like I said.”

“Okay, I’ll wake you up when there’s breakfast - Lee, _wait_!”

He disappears out the door chasing after their daughter, and Amy sighs in relief as she lets her eyes fall closed again.

It still feels like no time has passed before Jake comes to tell her the thirty minutes are up, but she forces herself to get out of bed anyway. They have a long day ahead of them, and Amy’s not risking getting teased by her brothers for wanting to sleep in. Instead, she throws on a hoodie to hide the fact that she’s freezing, and pours herself a big cup of coffee at the breakfast table. She manages four sips before it threatens to come back up again. Luckily, one-year-old Milo chooses that exact moment to almost choke on his piece of toast, and no one except for Jake seems to notice the gagging expression on her face as she tries to swallow everything back down.

She must be getting the flu, or maybe she’s picked up some other bug from her daughter. She’s cold, a little dizzy, and the stuffy nose refuses to pass even though she keeps away from the dog. They go to play in the woods while the sun is still shining, and Amy’s enjoying herself as she watches Jake run with Leah in his arms towards a tree, touch her feet against the wood and yell _Parkour!_ only to make the girl lose it with laughter every time, but she’s so tired when they get home, she’s barely sat down in an armchair before she’s nodded off again.

“Hey, Ames.” Jake’s firm hand on her shoulder makes her return to consciousness. His mouth is set in a hard line, and there’s a seriousness to the way he watches her that reminds her of the way he gets whenever she’s really sick, all worried and overly protective like he thinks she’ll instantly drop to the floor if he’s not right there. “Can we talk in private?.”

She nods, following him back to their bedroom where he closes the door. He sits down cross-legged on Leah's mattress, and she takes her chance to lay down on the bed, propping her head up with two pillows. “Okay. What’s up?”

He gives her a scrutinizing look. “Are you _sure_ you’re just tired?”

“I mean, I feel a little off, I’m sort of dizzy and my allergies are annoying.” She sniffles. “Probably coming down with some bug. Why?”

“Your immune system is _way_ better than mine, though. I’m always the first one to get sick after Leah and I’m fine. I don’t even think she’s been ill in weeks. Isn’t it weird that you’re the only one feeling sick?”

Amy shrugs. “Exception that proves the rule?”

“Yeah, or you’re not sick.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ames,” he says in a low voice, his tone slightly hesitant. “You don’t think there’s a chance you might be - I don’t know, pregnant?”

“Come on. How would that have happened?”

“_Uh_ -”

She rolls her eyes. “Sure, but I think we established my body didn’t want it to happen for us again.”

“Maybe, but face the facts. You’re exhausted, your taste buds are funny, and you were like, _seconds_ away from throwing up your coffee this morning. You’re cold, you’re dizzy…” He counts on his fingers as he lists the symptoms. “It sounds a lot to me like before we found out you were pregnant with Leah?”

“Or it sounds like it's been a couple of intense months, my body's fighting an infection and I’m getting ill once I'm relaxing.”

“Have you gotten your period this month?”

She glares at him. “Stop.”

“Well, have you?”

She sighs and pulls out her phone from her pocket, opening it to her period tracker. _Current Cycle -_ _day 33_. “It's a few days late.”

Jake’s eyes go wide.

“No.” She shakes her head before he can say anything. “Nope. That doesn't mean anything. My cycle got screwed up after the treatments and they said it could take months to return to normal.”

“Yeah, but…”

“No. Seriously. We both know I’m not pregnant.”

He squints. “We do?”

“_Yes_. And I can’t let myself think about it, Jake, because if I do…” She bites her lip at the crystal-clear memories of ovulation strips, shots and negative pregnancy tests, of feeling betrayed by her own body time and time again. “I’ll start to go crazy. I just got away from that obsessive headspace. I can’t go there again, I can’t have another negative staring me in the face, I just… can’t.”

He nods slowly, gaze still full of worry as he sits down next to her. “Okay. I just thought I’d ask.” His hands rub soft circles on her neck to ease the tension there, his lips brushing against hers for a few seconds. “Love you.”

“Love you too.” She sighs. “God, I need another nap.”

“I’ll make an excuse for you,” he says, and she swears she’s never been more in love with him in her entire life.

-

Jake doesn’t bring it up again, and Amy’s grateful. It's not that she doesn't wish for his suspicions to be true - her falling pregnant naturally would be a miracle - but she can't let herself think about it, let alone hope. She spent a year hoping and it led nowhere. This isn't the first time she's imagined symptoms that turned out to be nothing. If she lets herself have hope another time, only to be faced by cruel disappointment, she's certain she's going to shatter.

The weather changes from gorgeous sunshine to heavy rainfall, effectively locking every present Santiago family member inside of the cabin and creating yet more chaos. Luis and Christian organize a game night for the kids, first consisting of child-friendly memory-games and puzzles, but as more and more kids go to bed, eventually the adults drag out _Monopoly_ and get drunk. They also get _insanely _competitive. When Simon starts threatening Tony about having him do another challenge for his YouTube channel, and Tony threatens to wrestle Simon right there on the floor, the game is quickly changed to_ Cards Against Humanity_ which soon becomes a dangerous game of _Never Have I Ever_. Amy opts for alcohol-free wine, and it’s probably lucky, because her brothers are ruthless. _Never have I ever had a catastrophic double date - _drink. _Never have I ever made out with someone at work _\- drink. _Never have I ever accidentally startled a man with a genetic heart condition, resulting in his immediate death _\- drink, remind Julian he’s an asshole, and come up with a good revenge question. She’s relieved they go to bed before anyone can suggest a game of truth or dare.

The next day, she's feeling much better, and manages almost half a cup of coffee without nausea. She must've been right about it being some kind of infection, she thinks, pleased that it seems to be passing.

The weather isn't improving, so she teams up with a few of her brothers and their families to go to a nearby, kid-friendly, museum while Jake, Julian, and Simon visit a sneaker outlet. Leah finds an activity station and plays there for nearly fifteen minutes with her cousins before breaking down in tears when someone takes a crayon from her, and after it’s been another ten minutes of crying, Amy eventually chalks the child’s sudden fury down to low blood sugar. She ruffles through her bag for a snack and finds an unopened bag of dried mango, and two slices later, Leah is back to normal. Amy also finds an unopened tampon package, giving her a nudging reminder that her period’s still nowhere to be seen, but she shakes away the thought. Had this been a couple of months ago, she would've been rushing to take a test, and she gives herself a mental pat on the back for acting so calm about it now. She knows this means nothing and she's not stressing out. There’s this tingling, cramping, feeling low in her stomach anyway, aching for a moment before immediately fading. Surely that must mean her period is coming.

They go to bed early on their last night away, ready for the drive home the next day. Leah wakes up crying about a nightmare, so Amy ends up sleeping next to her in their bed with Leah's little legs curled against Amy's stomach and her hand gripping her wrist. As far as sleeping positions go, she could think of far more comfortable or ergonomic ones, but there's no denying the coziness of it. Leah snuggles her nose into the crook of Amy's neck, and Amy falls asleep just smelling her head, and if she’d ever been asked to describe the word _peaceful_ with one situation, she would have chosen this.

-

At first, she thinks she's dreaming about a real past event. She's back in the bedroom of their apartment, with Jake sleeping on her right and Leah asleep in her room, but Amy's awake. She can't tell why, isn't fully aware of the narrative here, but she can tell that dream-Amy has an instinct. Something is causing her to get out of bed, walk towards their bathroom and grab a pregnancy test - one of the cheap paper strip ones - from a visible spot in the bathroom cabinet. Something is making her take it. Dream-Amy watches the test, sitting perched on the toilet and staring intently at the first line, and after what feels like the blink of an eye inside of her dream-reality, a second, faint but clear, line shows up.

Even though it's a dream, the explosive happiness is every bit as real as if she'd been awake. She takes the paper strip, wrapping it in a bit of toilet paper, and is about to go ask dream-Jake if he can see it too when she’s pulled out of the dream and back to reality.

“What the hell,” she mumbles as she opens her eyes. Jake and Leah are still sleeping, and it's every bit as dark outside as when they went to bed, but Amy's wide awake and officially weirded out. She's never been one for dream analysis or seeing them as omens of any kind, but something about the realistic feeling has caught her attention, leaving her confused and wondering if there’s any truth to it. She tries to repeat to herself that there isn’t, she _isn’t_ pregnant and should go back to sleep, but her mind is reeling. She tries to do some breathing exercises to force her mind and body back to a relaxed state, but it’s out of reach. The _what if_-narrative plays on repeat in her head, and eventually, she accepts that she’s going to need to at least outrule the possibility. She’s pretty sure there’s a spare test left somewhere in her bag.

Carefully, she frees herself from the three-year-old’s grip and climbs over Jake instead. He grunts and opens his eyes for a second, but closes them again in the next.

Amy uses her phone’s flashlight to dig through the contents of her bag, finding her calendar, pencil case, notebooks, and a crossword magazine. Headphones, painkillers, an extra phone charger. More snack bars and packets of dried fruit. Wet wipes, tissues, hair ties, and some makeup. She moves on to the inner pocket, finding allergy medication, tampons, even an expired condom that seems to have nestled its way into the bottom of the bag and stayed there for years, but no spare pregnancy tests. She almost thinks she’s found one, but a closer look tells her it’s an ovulation indicator, and she groans with disappointment. She could have sworn she left one for emergencies, but suddenly it’s gone, and she could wait until tomorrow and buy one, but she wants - scratch that, she _needs_ \- to know now.

“Ames? Are you looking for something?” Jake’s voice is raspy, a mix of surprise and pure confusion in his tone, and she hums vaguely without looking back at him.

“I thought I had something in here,” she says in a whisper. “But I can’t find it. It’s nothing, you can go back to sleep.”

“What’re you tryna find?”

She sighs. “I had a weird dream, okay? So I want to take a pregnancy test, because I just need to know it wasn't real so I can go to sleep. I thought I had one in here, but I don’t, so…”

He yawns, and then, in a movement far swifter than she would expect from someone barely-awake, he gets out of bed and walks over to the plastic bag he brought home from the sneaker outlet.

“Jake, I’m sorry, but I don’t care about your sneakers right now,” she wheezes. He shakes his head and brings out another, smaller _CVS_ plastic bag.

“I know,” he says, “but you might care about this.” He throws her a familiar, pink-and-white carton, and she’s not even caught it before she knows exactly what it is.

“You bought a pregnancy test.”

He nods.

“What - when - _why_?”

“There was a CVS close to the outlet, I told Julian and Simon I needed to buy some Aspirin, ran in and got this. They didn’t see it,” he assures her, noticing the worry on her face. “I was smooth. And as for why - I know you said you didn’t want to hope, but I thought in case you changed your mind and wanted to know, well... “ He shrugs. “It would suck if you were stuck here with no way of finding out, even if it was just another day. I know how much you hate not knowing.”

She twists the carton in her hands. “I really do hate it.”

“So, are you…”

“I’m going to take it. Now.”

“Now - _now_?”

“Now.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then they’re silently racing each other out the door.

Amy’s so used to the steps at this point, she doesn’t even feel the anxiety kick in until she places the test on the sink and nods at Jake to start the timer. There’s barely space for them both to sit on the floor of the tiny bathroom, so they’re squeezed together, him stroking her hair and holding her hand as she focuses on keeping her breathing steady.

_It doesn't matter what it shows, _she tries to tell herself without success. _It’s just to check_.

And yet, there's this odd sense of hope in her heart she doesn't recognize from the last months.

“How did you guess?” She asks Jake, and he wrinkles his forehead, so she clarifies. “You remembered all the symptoms.”

“Oh.” He blushes. “This is going to sound bad, but… do you remember before we found out you were pregnant with Lee? There was like a week before you took a test, where you kept complaining about how it felt like you were getting the flu, or some kind of infection, because you were feeling _off_.” He draws quotation marks with his fingers. “You kept repeating that. And I was so proud of myself, because I'm always the first one of us two to get sick, but I was feeling fine. I thought I’d finally get to brag, and I was so excited, but then we found out you weren't sick.”

“Just pregnant.”

“Yeah.” He smiles. “Which, of course, was so much better. Except I never got to brag. It's haunted me since then. So this time, when you said you were feeling _off_ and like you were getting sick… I remembered, and I made a guess. Also, I’ve read the list in your binder. But honestly, it was mostly the first thing.”

Amy laughs, genuine and hearty despite her nervosity. “You're ridiculous.”

He puts his arm around her shoulders. “And yet you keep wanting to have kids with me.”

“It’s like I must be in love with you or something.”

Her comment makes him snicker, and she thinks, not for the first time, that there could never be another person she'd want to do this with - no matter the results on that test.

The timer rings. Jake turns it off.

“Do you want to check, or should I?”

“I don't think I can see another negative test,” she whispers, the fear making her heart beat out of her chest, and he nods and tells her to close her eyes. She hears him fumble for the test, and then he finds it, and there’s a moment’s silence that drives her crazy.

“Ames?”

“Yeah?”

“What’d you say two lines meant, now again?”

She opens her eyes, immediately snatching the test from his hands. “_No way_.”

It’s faint, but there’s an obvious second line.

Amy just stares at it. She's worried it’ll disappear, like her mind’s playing tricks on her, but it stays.

“This is crazy.” Tears of happiness flood her eyes once she speaks. “This is - this is absolutely insane.”

“Told you so,” says Jake in an attempt of sounding smug, but she can tell he’s about to tear up, too.

“This is positive.”

“Sure is.”

“Oh my god.” She can’t tell if she’s laughing or crying, but she’s shaking, unable to believe her eyes as she looks from the test to Jake and back at the test. “Oh my god, you’re going to brag about this _forever_.”

He grins. “Consider the fact that I won’t to be a testament to how much I love you.”

She’s too overwhelmed to know what to say, so she just hugs him, smiling into his chest as he peppers kisses to the top of her head.

“Hey, Ames?”

“What?”

“We’re having another baby.”

She’s spent a year wishing for it, getting used to the thought in her desperation to get there, yet his words are impossible to take in. _Another baby_.

“Seems that way,” she whispers, and he laughs.

There’s a second test in the carton, and Amy wants to take it right away, but Jake convinces her to save it for tomorrow so they can go back to bed before anyone notices they’ve been occupying this bathroom for a suspicious amount of time.

She doesn’t think she’ll be able to sleep, not when a thousand thoughts are running laps in her head and she’s so in shock she thinks she might still be dreaming, but then Jake’s hand sneaks under the hem of her t-shirt and rests low on her stomach _to make sure they're warm_, he mumbles, and she places her own hand over his and relaxes.

~

**november. **

Logically, Amy knows she’s pregnant.

All of the tests, a new one every day even though Jake tells her she’s being crazy again, are coming back two dark lines and plus signs and bolded words **Pregnant**, and the expensive test with the week indicator which shows how long it’s been since ovulation changes from _1-2 _to _2-3 _and _3+ Weeks_. The fertility clinic gives her a blood test, confirms it’s a healthy pregnancy and schedules an early ultrasound two weeks later, which feels like an eternity. Time is moving excruciatingly slow, even slower when the nausea fully kicks in and she wants to spend as much of the day as possible laying down. She’s secretly happy she’s feeling terrible because that means the hormone levels are rising, and Jake insists on high-fiving her after the first time she throws up, but it does make the days feel even longer when all she wants is for them to pass.

Emotionally, the knowledge is much more difficult to wrap her head around. She’s terrified, analyzing every minuscule shift in her body in fear of there being something wrong and checking for blood in her underwear several times a day. She’s short on distractions, because she’s exhausted and moving too much makes her feel sick, so she’s mostly stuck on the couch after work watching movies and cuddling with Leah. They're not telling her yet - they're not telling anyone, except Rosa who figured it out soon as Amy declined a tequila shot - and Amy feels like a shitty parent who doesn't have the energy to run around and properly play with her kid right now, but Leah seems to get that her mom’s not feeling well, because she's more than happy to read books together and watch iPad until Jake comes home and takes her to the park for a bit.

She wants to be happy, and every time she adds another positive test to the growing collection, she is, but she’s also dreaming nightmares and waking up in cold sweats in fear that this will be taken away from them. It’s too good to be true, the kind of happy ending you read about but never experience, and she can’t for the life of her try to fathom that it’s _real_. In short, she’s so hormonal she cries at stubbing her toe in the doorway, so nauseous she has to force down the few things she can consider eating, feeling guilty over how little energy she has to give Leah and how much responsibility this puts on Jake, and she can’t even allow herself to trust that they _are_ having another baby.

“This isn’t forever,” Jake tells her on a particularly exhausting evening after she's cried in his arms and eaten three lemon popsicles because they're the only thing that tastes remotely good. When she's cried a little more, about her fear and bad conscience and the deep shame in not being able to feel happy about something she's dreamt of for a year, he tells her, “just three more days until the scan,” and that does help.

-

Amy doesn’t want to exaggerate, but she’s pretty sure the hours between six a.m., when Leah wakes up, and nine a.m., when the ultrasound appointment is, are the longest three hours of her life. Mornings are enough of a struggle to get through with a stubborn three-year-old who’ll put up a fight about anything from clothes to breakfast to brushing her teeth if she’s in the wrong mood, and they’re not made any easier when Amy’s feeling like this, but it’s moving particularly slow today when nearly all of her focus is divided between worrying about the scan and trying to keep her breakfast down. In the end, Leah doesn’t brush her teeth this morning and she has a yogurt smoothie in the car, but they manage to drop her off in time and she gives them a long hug each, so Amy considers it a success.

Unfortunately, it’s a temporary one. She’s so nervous she can’t think straight, can’t focus on the _Taylor Swift-_tunes playing in the car or reply when Jake asks if she’s excited. Her head is playing possible nightmare scenarios on a loop, of there not being anything there, of them not seeing a heartbeat, or something else that will leave them no choice but to terminate the pregnancy. Taylor Swift sings something about cloaks and daggers and bright mornings, and Amy tries to see if she can memorize the lyrics for a distraction. She doesn’t get far before they get stuck in a traffic jam, though, giving them no option but to drive a few feet at a time, accelerating and braking on repeat.

She knows that Jake tries to drive as smoothly as possible. He’s a good driver. She doesn’t have a problem with his driving, but the constant starting and stopping, the inevitable jerking movements, is absolute _hell_ for her morning slash all-day sickness and suddenly all her focus has shifted to trying not to throw up in a moving car.

“I’m really sorry, Ames,” says Jake after casting one glance at her pale complexion, and she doesn’t dare to move her head but she mumbles a ‘not your fault’ before she goes back to taking deep breaths.

She makes it through the congestion, and the nausea’s easing as they drive the last stretch to the clinic, but then there’s a slight bump as they drive into the parking lot and the fight is lost. She stumbles out of the car in search of a trash can, but it’s too far away. Instead, she has to publicly humiliate herself by throwing up right there on the curb just as another couple is walking out of the clinic and giving her what she assumes are grossed-out looks. She feels Jake’s hands on her shoulders as she coughs up the last bit, grimacing at the foul taste.

“Everyone’s going to think I’m hungover,” she mutters as he leads her to a spot further away, urging her to sit down.

“Oh yeah. That’s definitely what they think about all the women who puke outside of fertility clinics.”

His comment makes her laugh, but the laughter makes her feel sick again, so she stops.

“You okay?” He asks, carefully scratching her neck with one hand as he digs in his messenger bag with the other. “I have water if you want to rinse your mouth, and I’m pretty sure I have gum somewhere.”

“I’ll take water,” she says, accepting the green kid-size bottle that was definitely originally Leah’s and taking a cautious sip. “Sorry about this.”

“_You’re_ sorry?” He lifts an eyebrow. “Damn, queen of unnecessary apologies. It’s okay.”

“I feel like crap,” she groans, ignoring him. “Sorry for whining.”

“Okay there, ridiculous. Stop apologizing. It’s not something you can control.”

“But I don’t _want_ to whine about this,” it comes out of her before she can stop it. “I don’t want to be sad, or scared. We fought so damn hard to get here! It fucking sucked! And now - I guess we’re having a baby, but I don’t know how to believe that, and I have to deal with the fact that pregnancy sucks, too!” She shakes her head, instantly regretting the quick movement but continuing to speak anyway. “I just want to be happy, and grateful, and I am. But I’m terrified. I can’t trust that it’s really happening, that it won’t be taken away from us again, and on top of that I feel awful all the time. I just… thought it’d be different.”

Jake looks a little taken aback by her sudden outburst, opening his mouth before closing it and watching her with that same worried look she’s seen way too much during the last weeks.

“It will be,” he promises once she stops talking. “You’ve done this before. You know it gets better. You get a baby out of it, which - there are worse deals.”

“Yeah. But it feels so far away. It doesn’t feel remotely real. I wanted us to be happy now, to relax and enjoy this, but it feels like everything sucks.”

“Isn’t that just life sometimes, though? It sucks, and then there are awesome parts, and then it sucks again, and then there’s more awesome stuff.” He grimaces, looking down at the curb before meeting her eyes. “I know you feel like crap. I know you’re scared. Honestly, so am I. But we’re about to see our baby for the first time,” he smiles, “and that’s at least one of the crazy awesome parts.”

She nods. “It is.”

“Yeah.” He reaches for her hand, squeezing it. “I just think that… there’s always going to be shitty things, right? Sure, this year was rough, and I wouldn’t want to do it again, but we also had a million amazing moments with Leah, and together, in-between the bad parts. When this baby comes,” he nods to her still-flat stomach, “we probably won’t be sleeping and everything will be nuts for a while before we figure it out, but we’re going to have _two kids_ and it’s going to be the best.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to tell you something I heard from a very smart person once,” he grins, looking proud of himself. “Life is unpredictable, but as long as you’re with the right people, you can handle anything.”

“That person does sound smart. Did they also make a butt joke after that?”

“Sure did. Made me cry, and everything. But what I was _actually_ trying to say was…” Jake blushes, and she can tell there’s a moment of emotional sincerity coming. “I’m with you. I know that. I also know that as long as I’m with you, all the bad stuff is survivable, and all the good stuff is a million times better. And I’d rather have hard days with you, and Lee, and I guess soon whoever this is,” he holds his hand to her stomach through her sweater, “than good days with anyone else.”

“Me too,” she snivels, having to wipe the tears on her shirt sleeve because of course, this is making her cry. “How’d you get so wise all of a sudden?”

“Married you,” he shrugs. “And had kids. Also, I got _hella_ old.”

“You’re forty-two.”

“Exactly. Shh.”

Amy laughs, with tears in her eyes because he’s hitting that perfect spot between wisdom and humor that’s one of the many reasons she loves him so much, and the smile on his lips grows wider once he sees that he’s made her laugh.

“I love you so much,” she whispers, cupping his face with her hands.

“I know. Love you, too.” She kisses him, and he kisses her back for a second before immediately pulling away and scrunching his nose. “Okay, _ew, _no. Vomity breath. Gross.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to apologize,” she teases. “But I’ll take that gum too.”

“Let’s just go inside and look at our baby,” he says as he hands her the packet, and she doesn’t protest.

There are some routine questions and another blood test, and then they’re ushered into the ultrasound room. She’s nearly holding her breath as she lays down, eyes glued to the screen and Jake’s hand squeezing hers so tight she thinks he might stop the blood flow if he squeezed any harder.

At first, she’s scared she was right and there’s nothing in there, because everything is blurry and she’s not sure what’s what, but then it clears slightly and the ultrasound technician points out a white blob the shape of a lima bean, and there are tears of relief running down her cheeks.

The technician says _and here’s the heartbeat_, and Amy has to clasp a hand over her mouth to keep from crying harder than she already is when a _whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh_ sounds through the room in quick little beats.

She could listen to that sound forever.

They get printed sonogram pictures of their fetus, which is slightly over an inch and just looks like a white blob but is _well and truly perfect_ according to their doctor, and then they’re advised to go home and celebrate. They both have to stop crying first, though, so they stand outside the clinic for another while, just hugging without needing to say anything else.

“So,” Jake says when Amy’s finally found space to breathe again. “How do you want to celebrate?”

“Do you want to go to Target and look for another shirt that says _Big Sister_ and some stupid cute tiny clothes?”

“Oh, you know I do.”

They get a long-sleeved pink shirt for Leah, six pairs of baby socks with animals on them and tiny pajamas with rainbows, and then they buy alcohol-free champagne.

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> the angst was fun, but i love the happy endings most. i really have been thinking of the scene where they find out since i started planning this fic in august. it’s been a long time coming and it’s what they deserve. heck, it’s what I DESERVE, and you too.
> 
> i also have had the line “yeah, that’s definitely what they think about all the women who puke outside of fertility clinics”, and a bit of jake’s following speech planned pretty much since then; it’s sort of a new girl-shoutout, if you didn’t catch it, inspired by nick’s speech in s02e01. life sucks. and then it gets better. and then it sucks again. 
> 
> a couple more notes ;  
\- i don’t know if the santiago siblings would be hanging out in this way, but i like to picture them doing it, especially once they all have kids/dogs/youtube channels! their parents are so intense but i really think the siblings do love each other and want to spend time with one another. also, i just don’t enjoy writing camila or victor much, plus i think camila would probably have noticed amy’s early pregnancy symptoms (that woman’s had EIGHT children, and a lot of grandbabies) and i needed it to be jake. 
> 
> -the spaceship game jake suggests with leah is stolen from my uncle and his wife with my baby cousins, heheh.
> 
> i’m starting a new course now (political science!), which will be a loooot more intense than my previous one was, so i can’t promise you the last chapter/epilogue before season 7 premieres but i hope it shouldn’t be too long after. i’m very excited about that one too! it will be a bit of best of-pregnancy and yes, you’ll get to meet baby number two. (they’ve been introduced before if you’ve read _all_ of my baby fics, but it was a while ago.)
> 
> i really would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, since it’s one i’ve been thinking about so long and the one i enjoyed writing the very most. i mean, i have so many favorites in this chapter, you don’t even know. the implication that julian just wants to see jake in a wet t-shirt! the scene by the water! the santiagos playing never have i ever! the daylight reference! wedding vows! man, this chapter WENT THERE. let me know how it made you feel, the circumstances under which you read it, tell me any favorite parts or quotes or descriptions or let me know if there’s anything you really want to see in chapter seven, or just spam with some heart emojis, anything goes!
> 
> i love you all. hope you stick around for the last chapter/epilogue. it’ll tie up a few loose ends and it’ll be good, promise ❤


	7. i'm gonna stand by you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, my friends.  
when i set out to write this fic, the goal was to finish it before the s7 premiere. i finished it like t-minus five hours before, so, SUCCESS. and then i took two weeks to edit it but, hey. 
> 
> i’m not going to keep you for too long, but i do want to give a couple notes before letting you enjoy these last 10k of pure kid fluff and love;
> 
> \- i created fake social media posts for this! they’re on tumblr [here](https://amyscascadingtabs.tumblr.com/post/190917808808/ill-walk-through-hell-with-you-chapter-7-bonus), because i’m paranoid about posting them as a separate chapter on ao3 and i didn’t want them in the middle. look at them after or have them open in another window! you’ll get when it’s time - there are two instagram posts and a text conversation with rosa.
> 
> \- i also made a playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7l7euDYrOfA1hPHG1Su0rx?si=14QdmYHzRTui0hgiG935Gw) for this fic! it has a few mentioned songs including the title theme, a little frozen and moana for leah, and a few songs that inspired the writing in general and makes me think of the story. 
> 
> \- leah is talking a lot in this. i’ve taken a bit of freedom with her language abilities and they might be slightly more advanced than your average three-year-old, but i’ve met kids that age on that level and kids are all different when it comes to speaking. i wouldn’t deem it impossible for a peraltiago kid to be pretty advanced in it either. i mean, amy’s super intelligent and jake never shuts up. obviously she wouldn’t pronounce stuff perfectly, but i would die if i had to write baby language, so please add that for yourself in your head. 
> 
> \- credit for the leo name headcanon to elsaclack!!!!
> 
> ok that's it. enjoy!

_and when you decide, it’s your time to arrive_

_i’ve loved you for all of my life._

_~ halsey, more_

**december.**

Once Amy starts trusting that she _is_ pregnant and the obsessive test-taking comes to an end, there’s the question of when to start telling people. There’s also the question of _what_ to tell them.

“It just feels like I’m faking it,” she complains from the couch as she tries to write down ideas in her notebook. “It’s happy news, but it feels wrong to not even mention what we went through before getting here.”

“So tell people about it?” Jake shrugs, handing her the McFlurry she sent him out at ten p.m. to buy. “That's always an option.”

“I know, but how? How do I say _hey, please be happy for us, but know that we went through hell to get here, _without being overly dramatic or too personal?” She takes a spoon of the soft-serve, chewing on the mini smarties, and tries to stifle a moan when it feels like fireworks of pleasure are exploding in her mouth. “Oh my god, I love you.”

“Me or the ice cream? Nevermind, shouldn't ask.”

“It's _so_ good.”

“Can I try some?”

“You should have gotten your own.”

“You would have eaten that too,” he grins, taking his spot at one end of the couch and stretching his legs. “But I'm proud of you. McDonalds is at least an unhealthy craving. Grapes was just lame. You have the chance to eat whatever you want and blame it on pregnancy cravings, and you want _grapes_.”

She sticks out her tongue. “Screw you. Anyway - thoughts on a pregnancy reveal?”

“We make our own Die Hard-style short film with explosions and animations, the end slate says something like _Peraltiago Baby number two_, _coming in June_. Super badass.”

“Nope. We write everyone cards?”

“Lame and time-consuming. We have an announcement at work and one each with our families?”

“Maybe, but I still don’t know what to say.”

“We tell Leah and trust her to spread the news for us?”

“We definitely should tell her first, but counting on her to spread the news means they’re going to get twisted in some way. Remember when we went on vacation and she told all her teachers we were _moving_ to Mexico?” Amy shakes her head. “It’s better if we say it ourselves. I don’t think I’m ready yet, though.”

“Okay,” Jake nods. “Let’s wait, then. Are you sure I can’t have any of that ice cream?”

“Not unless you want your hand chopped off.”

“_Wow_.”

-

Amy wishes they could hold off on telling people until she was sure she felt ready, but reality is quick to get in the way. The first-trimester nausea finally gets better around week thirteen, and suddenly the weight gain is a fact. She doesn’t mind it too much - she’s growing a human, all that matters is that they’re healthy - but it does make it increasingly difficult to hide. A size bigger uniform for work is easily solved and conceals the tiny bump rather well, but regular clothes are not as efficient. Her bras don't fit, her regular jeans won’t button, even the most flowy of shirts in her wardrobe seem to cling to the slightly rounded shape her stomach is taking. She’s running out of time.

With two days left until they're leaving to celebrate Christmas with the Santiagos, Amy realizes she has to give up. She's tried every possible outfit, considered whether she can just wear pajamas for the duration of the event, and _very_ reluctantly accepted that it’s a bad idea. She's out of options. Both of her red dresses are too tight, she doesn't have any bras that work with anything sleeveless, and even the tasteful floral wrap dress she was hoping for manages to frame her bump in an obvious way. She tries on several blouses with a generous skirt, but it's still notable to the trained eye and her mom had eight kids. Amy’s screwed.

“This doesn't work,” she groans as she pulls off the blouse, throwing it on the growing _no-_pile. “I look stupid.”

“You look adorable,” Jake insists from his watching position on the bed. “I’d say go with the wrap dress.”

“It’s nice, but it shows off this.” She points demonstratively to her stomach, watching his eyes turn soft as he follows her hand. “This baby’s not hiding. I think we have to tell people.”

“Do you feel okay with that?”

She considers it for a moment. “I guess? I still don’t know what to say about the infertility stuff, but… I’ll figure that out.”

“It’s not like you have to make an official announcement, right? You could tell people privately, whenever you’re ready - if you want to.”

“That’s true. Maybe... it’s okay if we just enjoy these news?” She shrugs. “We _are_ having another baby. That’s awesome. Seems fair for the world to know.”

Jake meets her tentative smile with a wide, goofy grin. “True that. So, how do we tell everyone? We’re not seeing the squad again until after Christmas.”

“We could take a cute picture with Leah and post it on social media? I know it’s cheesy, and a little impersonal, but it’s efficient and I can’t be bothered to plan an announcement.”

“I could totally work that Die Hard short film out -”

“No Die Hard.”

Jake grimaces. “Fine, fine. Your way, then. So, cute picture of Leah in a big sister-shirt?”

“Yeah, and she could be holding the latest sonogram pictures? And some short, sweet caption with that. We’ll think of something until tomorrow - that, and another thing.”

“What?”

“We have to tell _her_.”

-

Amy is, of course, overly prepared. She’s bought the pedagogical children’s books. She’s researched and taken notes on all the recommendations for how to manage the conversation and explain the matter in a way her three-year-old will understand. She’s made sure Leah’s not too tired, too hungry, or too grumpy for any other reason. Still, she’s never felt _less_ prepared for a conversation with her kid, and she’s anxious as they take a break from playing with her toy dinosaurs - who either seem to run a bakery or catch criminals, or if it’s both, Amy can’t tell - to drink some water and subtly reveal the life-changing news.

Jake must pick up on her nervosity, because he’s the one to start the conversation.

“So, bumblebee,” he ruffles his daughter’s hair and laughs as she immediately pats it down again, “We’ve got something to tell you. A surprise, I guess.”

Leah shines up at the word _surprise_. “What?”

“Do you remember how miss Edwards at your daycare had a baby?” Amy tries to lead her on to the topic. “And her belly grew and got really big, and then she wasn’t at work for a while because she was at home taking care of the baby?”

Leah scrunches her forehead and pouts her lip in focus, but she nods.

“And you know how your cousin Maisie has a little brother, and Sarah and Samuel are getting a baby sibling soon?”

Another nod.

“Okay. Well, baby,” she says slowly, but her heart is beating fast. “You’re also getting a sibling.”

Leah looks around, as if the sibling in question would be hiding in her room somewhere.

“Oh, no, not today,” Amy adds, and the girl frowns.

“When?”

“This summer,” Jake fills in, “when it gets warm outside and you don’t have to wear a jacket anymore.”

“But where’s the baby now?”

“Right now the baby’s in here.” Amy pokes at the tiny bump, and Leah tilts her head as she tries to piece it all together. “It’s small, but it will grow, and then you can talk to it or feel it kick in there, if you want.”

“And when the baby comes out and grow bigger, they’re going to think you’re the coolest person _ever_ and want to play with you all the time,” says Jake, catching Leah in his arms and tickling her neck so she giggles. “You two will have _so_ much fun.”

“Like Anna and Elsa?”

“Well, we don’t know if it’s a sister or brother yet, but yeah. Like Anna and Elsa.”

“Okay!” Leah’s expression turns serious. “But I’m Elsa.”

Amy laughs. “Of course, baby, you can be Elsa.”

Leah accepts this, and insists they keep playing the dinosaur game which remains incomprehensible to everyone but her.

“I think that went pretty well,” Jake mumbles to Amy, and she nods, relieved.

“Dada?” Leah looks up from the dinosaurs.

“Yes, bee?”

“How did the baby get into mama’s tummy?”

Amy has never seen her husband look so uncomfortable before. His face goes from normal to beetroot in a matter of seconds as his eyes go wide, and she’s trying not to explode with laughter as she looks from Jake’s mortified expression to Leah’s curious eyes.

“We’ll read a book about that later,” Amy assures her daughter while Jake mumbles something about a _very_ important call from the Captain as he looks at his blank phone screen and hurries out of the room. “I promise.”

Leah doesn’t seem particularly interested in changing from her Frozen-shirt or taking pictures with the sonogram print-outs she claims _looks like a fish, mama, _but then Jake promises her ice cream for dessert if she does and it’s a done deal. She tires after thirty seconds and she refuses to hold the pictures in any other way than in front of her face, but they get the shot and it’s good enough. It has to be, because only a minute later, their three-year-old has thrown off the sweatshirt and changed back into her t-shirt.

Amy types up the caption, presses _share_, and puts her phone in front of them on the kitchen table.

“Now we wait for Charles to call and yell at us for keeping this from him,” she states, and Jake snorts. “I’m betting four minutes.”

“I’m going to go with three.”

It takes one and a half.

-

It’s a great Christmas.

Sure, everyone is asking the same questions and she explains over and over that she’s feeling okay, better now that she’s in her second trimester, she doesn’t have any intuition as to what they’re having but Jake’s claiming it’s a boy, they’re excited, and they’re _pretty_ sure Leah is, too. She clenches her fists underneath the table when her mom mentions how wonderful it is with a big family, how lovely it is that Amy and Jake _finally_ decided to expand theirs, and she can see Jake do the same as he gets ready to defend her - their - honor, but she shakes her head and changes the topic before he has a chance.

She doesn’t want to be upset today.

There’s no point to being angry with her family all around. Not when Julian high-fives her and tells her _good for her she keeps reproducing with those Peralta genes_, not when Christian gives them actual useful tips on how to adjust from one to two kids. There’s no point in being upset when her brothers wives all tell her she can borrow maternity wear if she wants, or when Jake makes note of the mistletoe above their heads and kisses her so long and reverent that both Tony and Simon start wolf-whistling. There’s no point to being sad when Leah pulls at the edge of Amy’s dress, asking to go _up, up, _and Luis takes a picture of Amy and Jake kissing their daughter’s cheeks under the mistletoe.

She’s just happy.

She feels quick little flutters in her stomach throughout the day, a feeling she vaguely recognizes from the first times she felt Leah move inside her. They’re gone before she has the chance to lay a hand there, but she feels them.

-

Leah insists on sleeping in her parent’s shared bed that night, and even though it’s barely a queen-size and they’re all forced to huddle together with the three-year-old somehow taking up the most space, they give in. Jake and Leah both fall asleep in what seems like seconds, and Amy wants to join them, but her brain refuses. It’s not that she’s feeling anxious - her heart is so full from today, made fuller by her daughter’s face pressing into her shoulder and Jake’s hand reaching across her so he can rest it on the little bump - but there are some things she can’t stop thinking about.

Her mom’s comment about them finally deciding to expand their family, for example. All the congratulatory wishes streaming in after the picture - even Holt messaged them to give his well-wishes - that she can't fully take to heart, because no one sending them knows what she's gone through. She thinks of the shame and disappointment she’s felt throughout this year, of how much it would have hurt her to see a sweet announcement like this from someone else when she’d just had a miscarriage or another negative test. She wants to be honest - not just for her own sake, but also for the sake of a possible acquaintance out there who could be going through the same thing, feeling equally as alone in it as she did.

Amy grabs her phone from the nightstand, smiling at the mistletoe picture she's made her background, and tries out a few captions in the Notes app before settling on one.

She turns off the comments before anyone can react, not feeling like she needs anyone’s thoughts on this, and she's about to put her phone away again when she sees a single text from Rosa.

_Proud of you_.

Amy smiles.

She's just about to fall asleep when she feels the brief flutters again. This time, they don’t disappear right away, but repeat until she's certain of what they are.

She can't feel them from the outside yet, but she rests her hand below Jake's anyway, letting the reason behind the flutters know she's there.

“Hey there,” she whispers, lightly tapping her fingers against her abdomen. “Merry Christmas to you too, baby.”

The next little movement is right below her fingertips, and this time she can't stop herself from tearing up with joy.

~

**february.**

Everyone’s convinced Jake and Amy are having a boy. Jake claims he can feel it, and Amy believes him. She’s a Santiago, and two girls in a row are more or less unheard of in her family. Charles claims he can tell because of the position of her uterus, which grosses everyone out, but a vote is a vote. Rosa’s saying boy, as is Terry, as is Gina, as are all of Amy’s brothers and her parents. Karen Peralta invites them for dinner and talks for at least twenty minutes about how excited she is to have a grandson before Jake dutifully reminds her they don’t know the sex yet, and she waves it away and says she thought it was obvious.

The only person who _doesn’t_ believe they’re having a boy is Leah. From the first time anyone asks, the three-year-old declares with absolute certainty that she’s having a sister, and doesn’t change her mind. Amy’s nervous about how they’ll manage the inevitable disappointment and tries to write down a pedagogical conversation plan in her head as they go for the anatomy scan, but she ends up never having to use it. It turns out Leah’s correct.

“So you’re going to be just like Anna and Elsa,” Jake tells her as he’s putting her to bed that evening. Amy’s secretly listening in on their conversation through the baby monitor - modern technology is the _best_. “How does that make you feel?”

She can see Leah holding up her hand on the little screen, doing what she thinks must be a thumbs up. Then her tone turns serious again.

“Dada, how _did _the baby get inside the tummy?”

“Uhm, didn’t you and mama read that book about it?”

“Tell it again,” Leah insists.

“Okay, okay. Cool, cool, cool. This is cool, Jake, you can handle this,” Amy hears her husband mumble to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing, bee, here we go. So, sometimes, when two people who are adults and love each other a lot, they decide they want to try and make a baby. So they take a part - cells, you remember? From both of them, and those, well, stick together? I guess. And sometimes that becomes a little baby that grows inside a mom’s tummy until it’s big and ready to come out.”

It’s pretty much an accurate description. Amy’s proud of him, but Leah doesn’t seem satisfied.

“But how do they take it?”

“You’ll learn about that when you’re older, bumblebee.”

“Like algebra?”

“Who told you about algebra?”

“Grandpa Holt.”

“That tracks. Ehrm, sure. Like… algebra.” Amy can see him grimace from a distance on the screen. “We’ll go with that. Anyway - all you need to know is that everytime it works, it’s a miracle. You were our first miracle.”

“Miracle,” Leah repeats, yawning. “Dada, can you sing now?”

Amy hears Jake take a deep breath of relief before he begins to sing the _Tangled_ soundtrack.

“I’ll give it to you,” she tells him when he slinks into their bedroom ten minutes later, red in the face when she points to the baby monitor and he realizes she's been listening. “That was impressive.”

“You owe me big time,” he groans, slumping down on the mattress next to her, and she chuckles and kisses his forehead.

“Algebra, huh? Could you replace my X without asking Y?”

“If you had used that pick-up line on me, I literally _never_ would have slept with you.”

~

**april.**

Leah's feelings about becoming a big sister are fluctuating to say the least. Some days, she'll ask how the baby is doing and press her hands to the ever growing bump, laughing when she's able to feel a kick. Some days she doesn't want to talk about it at all, and they make sure not to force it on her. Some days - and those days are the ones that break Amy's heart - she's angry, shutting Amy out and wanting only Jake to take care of her because she's not sure how to handle the fact that her mom looks different and is tired and can't pick her up like she used to. It's after one of those days Amy has her first breakdown about feeling like she's not enough for two kids, that she was stupid to think she ever could be, and maybe this was a bad idea. She cries under a blanket as Jake puts Leah to bed because Amy wasn't allowed to, and there's a series of soft kicks like her baby’s trying to comfort her, but it only serves to make her more out of breath. Her eyes are all puffy and red when the door to Leah's bedroom opens and the girl peeks out, giving her a cautious look before tiptoeing out to the couch, climbing into her mother's arms and burying her face in her chest.

“I don't want to be a _big_ _sister_,” Leah confesses in a quiet voice. “I want to be little, too.”

“You're always going to be my little baby,” Amy promises her in full honesty then, hugging the girl as close as she can. “Forever.”

Other days, it's easier. They try to keep her involved as much as she wants to, letting her choose what outfit they’re bringing in the hospital bag and asking her opinion on where she thinks the crib should be. The girl definitely has an interesting taste in baby fashion and Amy ends up vetoing the suggestion that her little sister should go home from the hospital in a baby Santa suit, but as long as Leah feels she's been part of the decision-making, it’s good. One night, they go through photo albums of what she looked like when she was a baby, making the three-year-old proudly exclaim that she was _so cute_.

“You really were,” Jake agrees, catching her in his arms and tickling her. “You think your baby sibling will be as cute as you were?”

Leah just shakes her head at that, making them all laugh.

“Well, she sure is confident,” says Jake when he returns from putting her to bed, finding Amy still looking through the albums. “Crazy to think she used to be that tiny.”

“Even crazier to think we'll have another one that little, and one day they’ll be a three-year-old, too.” She lightly strokes the top of her bump, feeling a sharp kick way too close to her ribs.

“So many levels of crazy.” Jake shakes his head in bewilderment. “I wonder when you get used to the thought.”

“Never?” Amy shrugs. “Sometimes I still think this is a dream.” There’s another strong kick at that, making her flinch. “_Oof_. Fine, very real dream.”

It takes her a while to fall asleep that night, with her thoughts and a wildly moving baby helping to keep her awake for longer than she’d prefer. She thinks of how they’re nearing a year since they started fertility treatments, when she fought through the needles and bloating and hormonal chaos because she was praying for something to finally _work_, and she wonders what her reaction would have been if someone had told her about what she’d go through in the next months.

The events of their struggle to have another baby and her eventual spontaneous pregnancy feel entirely separate in her head, two roads not intersecting. She’s still bitter over their struggle, still wishing she could have saved her energy and frustration, still trying to forget it more days than not. The infinite gratitude she feels over the fact that they _are_ having another child hasn’t erased those memories. It’s mitigated the pain, made the flashbacks much less frequent and helped her towards acceptance, but Amy knows part of her will always remember.

In an odd sense, she’s happy about it. It reminds her it was never a guarantee.

~

**may.**

The cat plans have been put on pause indefinitely, but it doesn’t keep Jake from bringing the topic up. One day, he’s coming home with onesies that have patterns with cats on them or a stuffed animal that looks like one, one day he’s leaving web pages with sources for why it’s good for kids to grow up with cats open on her computer, and another day, he’s coming with new name suggestions from what seems to be out of nowhere.

“So for baby names, I was originally thinking Benjamin, but since that’s no longer on the table, I’m down to Meredith and Olivia.”

“That’s a weird combination of names,” Amy huffs. Jake looks the other way, tapping his feet against the floor and whistling in a way that’s probably supposed to come off innocent, but only succeeds in making his behaviour look more conspicuous. “They’re a reference to something, aren’t they?”

“Why would you say that?” Jake snorts. “That’s crazy!” His laugh is overly loud, and she shoots him a warning glare that shuts him up in a second. She’s nearly nine months pregnant now, so her _don’t fuck with me_-looks are pretty scary at this point.

“Tell me what they are, Jake. I know they’re not Die Hard-characters, and they’re not from Harry Potter or Ninja Turtles, so I’m going to make an assumption and say they’ve got some kind of relation to Taylor Swift.”

“Well, that depends on how you define relation -”

“_Jake_.”

“Fine, they’re her cats. But they’re nice names!” He wags his index finger in front of her, a childish grin on his face. “They work for humans!”

“Let the cat thing go, babe.”

“Nuh-uh, never.” He leans down, putting his face as close as possible to her bump. “Hey, kick once if you want us to get a cat ASAP.”

It takes a couple of seconds, and Amy almost thinks she’s won, but then Jake puts his hand on her shirt and instantly there’s a kick aimed against it.

“Traitor,” she mutters to the child still trying to play football with her ribs. “I’m the one growing you, you’re supposed to side with me.”

The cat conversation might be able to wait - Jake reluctantly accepts that a three-year-old, a newborn and a kitten would be a little much to take on at one time - but the name conversation’s more urgent. They’re having a baby in a month, maybe less, and even though Amy thinks it feels like forever as she waddles around with swollen ankles, unable to see her feet anymore, she knows it’s not. They need to make a decision.

“This is hopeless,” Jake groans as they look at their handwritten lists one night. They've each written down ten names, then switched with each other and crossed over ones they disliked, leaving them with exactly zero names. “How did we even decide on Leah’s name?”

“Technically, we decided on Leo as in Leonardo like Ninja Turtles, the painter and the actor, and then we found out we were having a girl and Leo became Leah.”

“I know _why_, I just don't know _how_. You said no to all of these!” He points at a scratched-out name on the list. “What's wrong with Luna?”

“Sounds too much like Leah.”

“And Abigail?”

“Too different.”

“Meredith?”

“You’ve _got to _let go of the obsession with Taylor Swift’s cats, man.” Amy massages her temples. “And too _Grey’s Anatomy._”

“Fine. What about Olivia, then? Come on,” he says when he sees her pressing her lips together, “no one will know that’s where it’s from. It’s a cute, normal, human name. It’ll work with both our surnames and it goes well with Leah without sounding exactly like it.”

“I don’t know…”

“If we use Liv for a nickname, they’ll be Lee and Liv, which both sounds kinda badass and kinda adorable.” Jake tilts his head to the side, giving her the puppy eyes she swears were passed down straight to their first-born daughter.

He doesn’t entirely convince her, because she doesn’t want to give in to her principle about no Taylor Swift-related names, but she doesn’t _hate_ the sound of Leah and Olivia. Really, the more she thinks about it, the more natural it sounds. She’s not giving him that satisfaction, though, so she tries to hide the smile on her face as she takes his list and writes down OLIVIA below the scratched-out names.

“This doesn’t mean I’m agreeing,” she warns him when his face lights up in excitement. “It just means I’m considering it.”

“Oh no, you’re definitely agreeing. Just like you will with the cat,” he grins, proud of himself, and she lets him have it for about three seconds before she whacks him in the shoulder.

(One evening - almost a year later - when they’re about to move into a bigger house with a garden, and their youngest daughter has started taking her first unsteady steps, Amy does agree to the cat. It’s a moment of weakness, she argues, but she never truly ends up regretting it.)

~

**june.**

Since Leah was born a timely two weeks before her due date, Amy’s hoping for the same thing to happen again. Everything is ready as can be for the arrival of their next family member, and they're just _waiting_, going day out and day in hoping today will be the day, but nothing’s happening. Leah asks every morning when she wakes up if today’s the baby’s birthday, and she gets equally disappointed each time they tell her they don't know yet. She also keeps asking about when she'll get to have her sleepover at uncle Charles’, which seems more of interest to her than the actual event of becoming a big sister, and she gets more and more upset for every day they have to tell her _not tonight_.

Amy enters her fortieth week of pregnancy, which is the most pregnant she's ever been, and time seems to move impossibly slower. She's swollen, achy, and tired, ready for this to be over and labor to start, but their baby seems to be enjoying herself in there, because the due date comes and goes without a single contraction. No more painful Braxton-Hicks than regular, no water leakage, no nothing. When the clock passes midnight on June 23rd and Amy’s officially past her due date, she’s getting seriously frustrated.

“This baby has to get out,” she complains as Jake rubs her feet that evening. Sometimes she’s pretty sure he’s an actual angel, but also, it’s what she deserves right now. “Starting tomorrow, I'm trying _all_ of the tricks.”

“Or you wait a few days longer? You know she’ll be born eventually.”

“Nope. I need her out of me,” she says, feeling in the exact same moment how the kid’s trying to stretch out from her curled-up position, pushing her feet to Amy’s ribs and her head somewhere seriously uncomfortable, and Amy curses in pain. “Come on, kiddo. You’re clearly uncomfortable too. Don’t wait it out.”

She gets another kick in the ribs for that.

A quick Google search informs her there are many at-home methods available to try and kickstart labor, so she starts with the least terrible ones and works her way up. Sex isn’t bad, but it’s also sweaty and impractical and has no effect whatsoever. Walking is boring and makes her feet swell up like crazy. Jake suggests they go to her favorite bookshop in New York so she can walk around there and have an awesome story to tell if labor were to start in _Strand’s Bookstore_, but the only thing that happens is people give her sympathetic looks and she nearly cries when a book she wants to look at is on one of the lower shelves. The spicy Chipotle takeout they bring home just gives her heartburn. Pineapple makes her tongue hurt. The raspberry leaf tea tastes like chewing on grass. She saves the castor oil for last, wanting to avoid the distasteful liquid at all costs, but even that has little to no effect and Amy’s furious. On top of it all, Jake can’t stop laughing at her as she waddles around their apartment all grumpy and uncomfortable, and his laughter makes her even angrier.

(Leah just says Amy looks like a couch. That isn’t much better of a self-confidence boost, but it does, at least, make her laugh.)

-

When Amy’s three days past her due date with no changes, Leah decides she can’t take the anticipation anymore and throws a full-on tantrum. It takes them nearly ten minutes to figure out that the three-year-old’s not crying because she wants the baby to come out, but because the sleepover she’s going to have when her parents are at the hospital is _never happening_. They try to comfort her with promises of Disney movies and ice cream at home instead, but it doesn’t work, so they give up and call Charles to see if she can stay there an extra night. Charles also cries, because unfortunately, Nikolaj has gotten a stomach bug making them unsuitable for babysitting. After a moment’s consideration and consultation with their still-sobbing daughter, they call Rosa instead, and Rosa’s confused but accepts the request.

“And you're sure you know how to take care of kids for a whole night?” Jake asks when their friend stops by to pick up Leah, who is _hyped_ to hang out with her aunt Rosa for an evening, and drags her into her room to show all her dinosaur toys the moment she steps inside the apartment.

“I assume there's instructions,” Rosa nods to the thick babysitting binder Amy's holding. “And I’ve taken care of my nieces. I’m pretty sure I can keep her alive for a while.”

“Solid. She eats pasta and she's supposed to go bed at seven, but that usually never works, so don't get too stressed about it.”

“Great.”

“Brush her teeth before she goes to sleep and don't let her backflip off the bed,” Amy adds. “There’s lots of information in the binder and we’re a phone call away if there's any issues.”

“Send us pictures if Jocelyn braids her hair!”

“Send us pictures anyway. _Please_ update us.”

“Got it,” says Rosa and lifts up Leah on her shoulders, making the girl scream with laughter. “Pictures, pasta, no backflips. We’ll be fine. You guys enjoy your last night alone in forever,” she grins, pointing to Amy’s baby bump. “Text me if you go into labor.”

“I wish,” Amy groans, and then they’re the overly emotional parents who kiss and hug their oldest daughter goodbye until she begs them to stop.

Rosa leaves with Leah, and the apartment turns the peaceful but unnatural kind of calm they rarely experience at daytime anymore. She guesses it will be but a memory once their second baby finally arrives, but for now, she turns to Jake and asks,

“Wanna have a date night?”

And so they do.

Their last night on their own before life with two kids is gentle and undramatic - a shared bath, a takeout dinner in front of a Harry Potter movie they’ve seen a hundred times before, cuddling and chatting on the couch before going to bed at midnight with hope of a night’s undisturbed sleep.

Nine years they’ve done this, she thinks as he kisses her, and then the bump for good measure, goodnight. Nine, crazy, ever-changing years that have turned their lives upside down more times than she can count, and every day, she wakes up grateful that it’s him she gets to do this with.

It takes her upwards an hour to fall asleep. First she has to pee, then she can’t find a comfortable position, then her back is hurting and Jake has to get her heating pad. When she finally sinks into a dreamless unconsciousness, Amy’s so tired it feels like she could sleep for days.

-

She sleeps for an hour.

It feels like it’s only been seconds before a dull ache in her lower back and stomach wakes her up, mild at first but increasing steadily, reaching a truly painful point and then ceasing.

_Weird_, she thinks, and tries to fall back asleep. She’s too tired. She just wants to sleep. Whatever’s going on can surely wait until tomorrow.

A few minutes later, the same pain appears, a little stronger this time. She opens her eyes to glance at the alarm clock - 2.04 in the morning - and shifts her position in hope for that to help, but it doesn’t.

The next time it returns, her clock says 2.08. This time it’s _real_ painful, worse than any Braxton-Hicks she’s felt before this, and it feels a lot, too much, like how she remembers the real deal from when she was in labor with Leah.

2.11, the same sensation appears again, lasting for a full minute and forcing her to breathe real deep to manage the pain. Her belly’s going rock hard for the entire time it’s lasting, too. Definitely suspicious, but she’s still too tired to reflect over it.

2.14, it happens yet another time.

_Nope_, is the only thought Amy can think when she realizes how close together they’re coming. _Nope, nope, nope._ She’s way too exhausted. She can have a baby in the morning, when she’s slept, and she’s not a fan of the idea of doing anything before then. _This isn’t happening_, she tries to convey to her body. _This can wait until tomorrow_.

2.17. This time, she can’t be still. She tries to find a comfortable position in their bed, but it doesn’t work, she needs to lean against something for support. She slides down to the floor and puts her crossed arms on the mattress, placing her head down and lightly swaying with the rest of her body as she breathes, breathes, breathes through the wave.

2.20. Another one. Amy’s fuming; she’s not having this right now, she’s _tired_, and no matter how badly she wants to meet this baby, she really wants to sleep before she does.

2.23, the same thing happens again.

2.26. She tries to muffle her groan in a pillow when it’s impossible to be silent. The pain is nearing what feels like an unmanageable point, and she hears Jake stirring awake at the other edge of the bed.

“Ames? What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” she says too quickly in an exhale. “Nothing’s happening.”

“Okay,” he replies in a skeptical tone, stretching himself over the bed and looking her in the eyes. “So you’re just doing that for fun, then?”

She doesn’t reply, but she's hyper-aware of him watching her scrunching her face in god-awful pain when the next contraction hits.

“Babe,” Jake asks, giving her a look of mixed worry and entertainment when it's over, “how many times has that happened?”

“Ten,” she hisses. “It’s fine. They’ll stop. I want to go back to sleep.”

“And how close together are they?”

“Three minutes. Two.”

His eyes widen with fear.

“No.” She shakes her head. “I need to sleep. This baby waited this long, it can wait until the morning.”

“I really don’t think that’s how it works.”

“It should be.”

Jake laughs nervously, stroking her hair. “Sure, but - maybe we should really, _definitely_, go to the hospital?”

“No, I want to go back to sleep.”

“How exactly do you plan on doing that?”

“I don't know.”

“You know, if we go to the hospital, you could have the epidural like you did last time. Then you could probably sleep for a while.”

She stares him down. “Promise me.”

“Uh, sure. Promise.”

“Okay. Let's go. But only for the epidural,” she declares, and then another torturous contraction forces her to shut up.

A quick call to their doctor confirms they should be going in immediately if contractions are that close together, so Jake is rushing, running around the apartment like a chicken with its head cut off as he packs the final things for their bags. Amy tries to help, but she's pretty useless, because every two minutes she has to lean against the nearest piece of furniture and rock slowly from side to side until the pain subsides. She's not sure how she gets in the car, because each contraction makes her feel like everything else blurs and she can't think, can't speak, can't do anything but try her best to breathe and not faint when the pain radiates through her lower back and core, intense and demanding and _so_ much worse than she remembered.

Only a year ago, she remembers as Jake squeezes her hand and tells her he loves her, they’d been sitting in this same front seat as she cried and cried after finding out their first IVF transfer didn't take. It feels like a lifetime ago, and at the same time, like yesterday. She wonders if she could have predicted this back then, and figures probably not.

“We're having a baby,” she whispers to Jake in a break between contractions, and he smiles so wide she thinks his face is going to break. “You ready?”

“So ready. You?”

“To meet her? Yeah. To give birth? Not really.”

“You're gonna kill it,” he tells her, and there's another contraction just then so she can't reply, only grit her teeth and squeeze his wrist really hard. “You're already killing it.”

“I really can't wait for that epidural,” she mutters through the pain, and Jake just laughs.

Amy's not sure how she gets through the twenty-minute car ride. It's absolute hell, because she can't move in any way, can't do anything except keep breathing and keep holding on to the thought of the pain relief she's going to get once they get to the hospital. She wonders why people willingly choose to put themselves through this without any drugs. She sure as hell isn't going to, not after having learnt the difference last time.

Jake gets them parked and grabs their bags as Amy maneuvers herself out of the car. She manages just in time, closing the door in the same second as there’s a sudden warmth down her thighs and she almost wonders if she’s peed herself before realising what’s happening.

“Water,” she tries to communicate to Jake, and he digs up a pink water bottle from her bag before noticing her wet leggings.

“Oh. _That_ kind of water. Well, at least you didn’t get any on the seat? Very considerate.”

She just glares at him.

Amy guesses it’s meant to be something like a five-minute walk through the corridors, but when she has to stop every other minute for the contractions that seem to have increased fivefold in strength, bringing with them an uncomfortable pressure that she _really does not like_, it’s probably closer to twenty minutes before they can be guided into their room.

Their doctor - the same one she had for her first labor, an older woman with dark hair and a comforting smile who perfectly meets Amy’s rock-hard criteria for _professional but nice_ \- does a quick examination, which Amy can barely feel in comparison to how much pain she’s in by now, and then she laughs.

“Yeah, you’re having a baby tonight alright. Good job getting here in time,” she nods to Jake, who looks unsure if he should accept the compliment or freak out over the possibility of _not_ having gotten there.

“Great,” Amy huffs. “So can I get the epidural? Because I want it _now_. Please.”

“Oh no,” Dr. Cowan laughs. “You’re eight centimetres dilated and this seems to be progressing quickly. My guess is you’ll be pushing in half an hour, so I’m sorry, but there’s no time for that.”

“_What_?”

“You could have the laughing gas, if you’d like, but anything else will just slow labor down.”

“You promised,” Amy hisses towards Jake, and he holds up his hands.

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t my fault.”

“You _promised_!”

“What are we fighting about here?”

“I don’t know,” she confesses, and then another brutal contraction washes over her, together with the realization that she’s going to have to do the rest of this unmedicated.

She’s _not_ happy about it.

-

Really, Amy's not sure how she gets through it.

To say that it's bad is an understatement; it's excruciating, some kind of evil torture she genuinely can’t believe humans were made to be able to handle, agonizing to a point where she's nearly hoping it will render her unconscious because that means she wouldn't have to take it anymore. She tries the laughing gas, but it just makes her feel dizzy and out of control, so she powers through without it. Jake tries to tell her she's crushing it, that she's badass and strong and doing amazing, but she can't waste any focus listening and eventually she tells him - not very gently - to shut the _fuck_ up. It makes her feel kind of bad, because she knows he’s trying to be supportive, but at the same time, she really couldn't care less about his feelings because she's pretty sure she's going to die every time the pain increases.

But somehow, she survives.

One good thing - and it's not even _good_, it's more like a band-aid on a gaping chest wound in comparison - about no epidural is that she's free to move around, trying different positions in hope for something to ease the pain. Nothing does, but some ways give her a little bit more power, a little more control over what's happening. Amy supposes it's worth something. She does love control, even if she’d trade it in a heartbeat for some sweet, sweet pain relief. She ends up standing sort of on her hands and knees on the bed, getting some help from gravity, and it feels like the last bit stretches on forever but later on she’ll learn it was really fast. It's scary, a surrealistic thing to feel how her body just takes over, like it knows how to do something her head definitely doesn't.

And then, right as she’s certain she's not going to make it even another second, it's over.

There’s a moment of petrifying fear that something's wrong, that her baby’s about to be taken away like Leah was for the first traumatic minutes of her life, but then she hears a sharp, gurgling cry and she's not sure what’s happening but suddenly there’s a baby on her chest and everything is so, so, _right_.

Her daughter's kind of purple still, a little slimy and a little bloody and completely perfect, and Amy's shaking with a mix of shock, adrenaline and tears as the newborn puts her tiny hand high up on Amy's chest and she can't help but grip it, whispering a gentle _hi, baby, hi, _as the child squeaks in return.

She's imagined the sensation of holding her just-born baby in her arms since the first day she started thinking of having another kid, and yet all the fantasies pale in comparison to the explosive, unyielding love she feels when the newborn opens her eyes, gazing carefully at the world for the very first time.

-

“You know what time it is?” Jake asks her once when they’ve been moved to the recovery room, trying to fathom what just happened. “It’s five-thirty. She was born at four-thirty. When did you say you woke up?”

“Two a.m.,” Amy mumbles, and he shakes his head.

“So you did that in, what, two and a half hours? _Man_, you’re insane.”

“Thanks.” She chuckles, stroking her fingers over the thick, dark hair that appears to be a dominant trait for Santiago-Peralta children. Their newborn daughter is blinking at them as she tries to figure out the whole breastfeeding thing, seeming pretty exhausted from the events of the morning but not really wanting to sleep, either. “It was _awful_.”

“But worth it?”

“Yeah,” Amy nods without tearing her eyes away from their hour-old miracle. “Worth it. I’m not doing it again, though.”

Jake grins and kisses the top of the newborn’s head. “Very fair. I mean, we literally have the two most perfect kids the world has ever seen, so it’s not like you have to.”

“She really is perfect, huh?”

“For sure. You really are,” he whispers to their baby, running his thumb over her round cheeks and tiny nose. “Just like your sister.”

“Leah,” Amy bursts out, sitting up a little straighter and instantly regretting it because she’s sore and ungracious in every way. “We need to tell her! We never even told anyone we were going in! Fuck, I gotta text Rosa. Can you get me my phone?”

Jake brings it to her, and Amy carefully transfers their daughter over to his chest so she can have her arms free. The newborn whimpers at first, not too happy about the move, but then Jake softly pats her back through the pink and blue hospital blanket and lets her grip onto his thumb with her fist, and she’s at peace again. Her little head snuggles into his chest as she relaxes, and Amy just watches, barely making an attempt at wiping away the happy tears.

It’s been an obvious feeling to her, to hold her children for the first time and know that they are _hers _in some miraculous way, that they were part of her - but it’s another unique and indescribable feeling to watch Jake hold them and know they are his just as much, always safe and loved in his presence. Although she could never have predicted the sensation, she’s always had an inkling of it - a deep conviction and a ceaseless, rightful confidence that he would make the greatest dad. It keeps being proven correct.

“I forgot how small they are,” he mumbles, and there are tears in his eyes, too.

“She’s like a pound and a half bigger than Leah was.”

“Doesn’t feel like it. Do you think they look the same?”

“A little?” Amy tilts her head. “Same hair, same nose. But so different, too.”

“I think she looks a lot more like you than Lee did,” Jake smiles, stroking the little fist holding onto his thumb before kissing it. “I’m fine with that. You look like your mom, kid. Oh, don’t look so upset,” he says when the newborn scrunches her face together, “it’s a great way to look. Would you rather have _my_ nose? Yeah, right. I didn't think so.”

Amy laughs, letting them continue their exchange as she snaps a picture of them and then sends that and another one of the first baby pictures to Rosa.

Rosa’s reply is as instant as it is shocked. She congratulates them, tells Amy she's crazy, promises them they can talk to Leah once she wakes up and even offers to drive her there later in the afternoon “if it means she'll beat Charles to meeting this baby”.

Amy figures she should probably text more people to spread the news, but the important thing is Leah knows, or at least will know, so she puts her phone on the side table and turns back to Jake.

“Rosa’s going to call us when Leah’s awake,” she says, unable to keep herself from leaning over and kissing their baby’s cheeks when she squeaks a little again.

“Great. You want to get some sleep before?”

“Oh, so bad.” Her exhaustion faded away somewhat in the chaos, pure adrenaline and a cascade of hormones keeping her awake, but it's catching up with her now. “Promise you two are good?”

“Olivia and I are great,” he promises, and his smile and their daughter’s softly blinking eyes makes her certain he’s right. “You agreed to that name, right?”

“One condition.” Amy yawns. “You are _never_ allowed to tell her she’s named after a cat. Ever.”

She thinks she can hear him mumbling something about _not making promises he won’t be able to keep_, but she’s falling asleep before she can protest.

-

Leah’s and Olivia’s first meeting doesn’t start out great.

Amy’s trying to be methodical and gentle, making sure Olivia’s in her bassinet and she can have both arms free to hug her three-year-old, but then the infant starts wailing the moment Leah enters the room and she gets terrified, immediately trying to run out with tears streaming down her cheeks. Jake has to chase after her while Amy tends to Olivia, who’s decided she needs to eat _right this second and not a moment later, _except she’s literally ten hours old and not very good at nursing just yet, which only serves to increase her frustration before she calms down enough to figure it out. When she does and Amy can take a deep breath, Jake and Leah return. Leah’s calmed down a little, but she’s still red under the eyes and skeptical to even say hi to her mom and her sister. Amy’s heartbroken as the girl wraps her arms tighter around Jake and turns her head away, and there’s a second where she wonders briefly again why she thought this was a good idea.

But then, Jake asks if Leah wants to see the gift Olivia brought her - a nifty trick Amy found on some Instagram account - and the three-year-old squeals with happiness as she unwraps a singing Elsa doll, and it’s upwards from there. She dares to climb into the hospital bed and first look at the baby, then carefully pat her head, then laugh as Olivia finishes nursing and makes another squeaking noise. Amy figures Leah won’t want to hold her sister at first, but once she’s told them all about her sleepover with Rosa - it seems to have included gymnastics, a Disney movie and cake - she’s looking at the baby with a little more interest, and then she asks the question all on her own.

“Can I hold her?”

They put a pillow in her lap and a pillow behind her back for support, and Jake holds his hand under Olivia’s head throughout, but they let her. It’s the best thing Amy’s ever seen in her life. Just when she thinks it can't get better than this, Leah leans her head down so her cheek is touching her little sister's, and Amy has no way of stopping her happy tears.

She’d never thought people were lying, per se, when they’d described how your love just doubles when you have another child. She’d been certain she would love another baby just as much. It had been part of the reason she fought so hard to have one, but she realizes now that she was never even close to understanding the full meaning of _double the love_. The power with which she loves Leah has grown exponentially for every day, reaching infinity and still becoming stronger, and today, it's like her love for Olivia has clocked in at the same level, stretched out a hand and increased in tandem with the love for her sister. Amy wonders how it makes sense, how it’s possible for a heart to grow that big, but she's accepted that it’s one of many questions about motherhood she’ll never know the answer too.

Instead, she just makes sure she takes a series of pictures to document the moment, and then she meets Jake's eyes for a second to mouth a silent _I love you_.

-

They get to go home the next afternoon. Amy was expecting it to feel more natural with their second child, less like they’ve stolen someone else’s baby and is pretending to know what they’re doing, but it feels just as absurd as the first time when they secure her in the car seat and carry her outside.

The sun seems to be shining particularly bright as they drive, but Olivia sleeps for the whole way home.

She does not, however, continue with that for the rest of the day. Rather, she wants to eat for most of it. Which is fine; Amy knows and remembers that’s what it’s like at first. Still, it’s exhausting and far from painless while they’re both trying to figure it out, and it keeps her stuck to her corner of the couch for hours on end. This gets Leah jealous, making her throw a tantrum because she wants Amy to play with her in her room and she can’t, and there's a moment where everyone except Jake is crying at the same time before Leah calms down and accepts the suggestion of everyone watching a movie on the couch and ordering pizza for dinner. Partly to celebrate, partly because no one has the energy to cook.

There's going to be an adjustment period for them all, Amy figures. She’s certain it will come with a cavalcade of challenges, but as Leah insists on being Jake's helper as he changes a diaper and shines with pride as she hands him too many wet wipes and picks out Olivia's pajamas, she can already tell it's going to be more than worth it.

When it’s time for Leah to go to bed, she claims she wants everyone there to read stories. Amy asks, just to make sure, if that means her sister too, and Leah nods. She’s very intent on storytime taking place in her bed, though, and so Amy ends up squeezing herself to fit in the toddler bed with Olivia on her chest and Leah on her side. Jake has to sit on the floor.

“This is unfair,” he grumbles, and Leah laughs and snuggles closer to her mom, pressing a kiss to her baby sister’s head.

“Read the story, dada.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.”

They read two different stories, both of them yawning through the second one. Amy’s pretty sure Leah’s about to fall asleep, can feel the little arm draped across her stomach going heavier, more relaxed, but as Jake closes the covers to the second book, there’s a whisper.

“Another book,” it comes out in a yawn, and Jake laughs.

“Are you sure, bumblebee? I think you’re getting pretty tired.”

“No.” Leah shakes her head. “More stories.”

“Fine.” He presses a kiss to her forehead. “One more. Just for tonight.”

He begins to read, and a few minutes later, Leah’s sleeping. She has her mouth open, one arm still resting on Amy as if to hold her in place, her other arm hugging the stuffed lion animal she still sleeps with.

She seems so big in comparison to her little sister, yet so innocent and peaceful as she’s sleeping, and entirely magical to watch. Every day, Amy thanks her lucky stars that she gets to watch this child grow up and take on the world, and it blows her mind to think she’ll get to do the same with the baby curled up on her chest. It seems so far away to picture this tiny infant growing up and becoming her own unique individual, too, but she knows it will happen, and she cannot wait for the rollercoaster ride she figures raising these two children will be.

She’s squeezed into a far from comfortable position in the narrow toddler bed, she’s still sore and in pain after the nightmare that is childbirth, she's sleep-deprived and figures she's looked better after a 48 hour work shift than she does right now, but both her children are sleeping so close to her, and she's never been happier.

There’d been a time, not long ago, where she thought she’d never get to experience this. A second child had seemed like something the universe wasn't willing to give her, until it was, and now she’s living the reality she once feared would remain a dream.

She knows she’s never going to see her infertility journey as something beautiful, because it wasn’t. It was heartbreaking, soul-crushing and lonely even with Jake by her side, and the few comments she’s heard about how _it must all have been worth it, though _have made her want to punch someone. It was a curveball life threw her, an unfair challenge she had to go through for some reason, and she’s happy she survived it but she’s not grateful it happened. She’s simply accepted it. In the end, her life also gave her this; two objectively perfect children who are the best thing to ever happen to her, even pushing their father down to a still close second-place position. Her gratefulness for them still doesn't erase the painful experiences, but it makes them fade into the background, to a point where they’ll eventually become but a faint shadow of a memory. Amy figures that is the most she can ask for.

It takes her a moment to realize she has no idea how she's going to get up from this position. She’s closest to the wall, and she gets now that it was an unwise choice. Leah’s holding onto her arm, Olivia’s sleeping lightly and already stirring, and Amy has strong doubts in her own ability to get up without waking anyone.

She looks to Jake, hoping he might be able to help her, but finds that he’s fallen asleep on the floor using a stuffed animal as a pillow and holding his thumb between the last pages of the book they were reading. It looks ridiculous and deeply endearing at the same time, and even though it means she’s _so_ screwed and she’s going to have to wake him somehow before Olivia starts screaming bloody murder, she can’t be mad about it.

All she can do is laugh.

_and at last, i see the light_

_and it’s like the fog has lifted_

_and at last, i see the light_

_and it’s like the sky is new_

_and it’s warm, and real, and bright_

_and the world has somehow shifted_

_all at once, everything looks different_

_now that i see you. _

_~ i see the light, from tangled_

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … and that’s the end, my friends.
> 
> i really can’t thank any of you enough for reading this crazy, crazy story. it’s been a wild journey for me, and it makes me very emotional to think of where i was when i started writing this and where i am now… a lot has happened. i’m grateful this fic could keep me going through this shitty fall. it’s meant a lot to have this as a passion project. :’) 
> 
> i had several reasons for writing this. part was because i wanted to tell this story, spread a little awareness of what is a very real issue for a lot of people. amy’s second instagram post is kind of just my message with this.  
i wanted it to be secondary infertility because i wanted to tell it from a perspective where jake and amy are living a well-settled family life, and also because i wanted to really give leah some more attention before she officially isn’t canon anymore. if there’s no baby born before the end of s7, i might continue writing her for a bit because i’ve done it for nearly two years and it’s really, really hard to say goodbye, but if we get a gender reveal saying they’re having a boy... it’s possible this is her last appearance. WOW that hurts for me. catch me naming my future daughter leah.
> 
> i want to thank all of you for reading. this isn’t my most popular fic and i always knew it wouldn’t be, but it was a story i wanted to tell and i’m so grateful to everyone who’s read and appreciated it. 
> 
> INFINITE thank you-s to siân who’s been the most supportive of this since the first time i video-chatted with her and told her all about a crazy multi-chapter idea i had. i don’t know what i would do without you (or craig with the hat and his very round son festus) in my life. i love you to the top of craig’s top hat and back. that doesn’t sound very long but it’s a lot, okay?
> 
> huge thank-you’s also to tilde and fezzle who helped beta-read for the early chapters of this before i got lazy and anxious about it, to renée and emilie and maya among others for showing so much enthusiasm in your comments, and to every single one of you who ever left kudos or a comment or bookmarked or reblogged or sent an ask on tumblr. i love you i love you i love you. i would walk through hell with all of YOU. 
> 
> okay. now i’m onto writing (canon-compliant!) fics about this craziness of a season that season 7 appears to be. can you believe they’re having a BABY?  
as usual, please feel free to leave a comment on this and you can catch me in the comments sections or on tumblr to chat about fic or s7 or anything else. 💕 peace out!


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